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THE  WRECK 
OF  EUROPE 


THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

(L'Europa  Senza  Pace) 


By 
FRANCESCO  NITTL 

Former  Prime  Minister  of  Italy 


PORTRAIT    FRONTISPIECE 


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INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1922 
By  The  Bobbs- Merrill  Company 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


JUL 


1944 


PRESS  OF 

BRAUNWORTH   &  CO. 

BOOK   MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN,   N.   Y. 


PREFACE 

In  this  book  are  embodied  the  ideas  which,  as  a  parlia- 
mentarian, as  head  of  the  Italian  Government,  and  as  a 
writer,  I  have  upheld  with  firm  conviction  during  the  last 
few  years. 

I  believe  that  Europe  is  threatened  with  decadence 
more  owing  to  the  Peace  Treaties  than  as  a  result  of  the 
war.  She  is  in  a  state  of  daily  increasing  decline,  and 
the  causes  of  dissatisfaction  are  growing  apace. 

Europe  is  still  waiting  for  that  peace  which  is  not  yet  ef- 
fective, and  it  is  necessary  that  the  public  should  be  made 
aware  that  the  courses  now  being  followed  by  the  policy  of  -v  r 

the  great  victorious  states  are  perilous  to  the  achievement 
of  serious,  lasting  and  useful  results.  I  believe  that  it  is 
to  the  interest  of  France  herself  if  I  speak  the  language 
of  truth,  as  a  sincere  friend  of  France  and  a  confirmed 
enemy  of  German  imperialism.  Not  only  did  that  im- 
perialism plunge  Germany  into  a  sea  of  misery  and  suf- 
fering, covering  her.  with  the  opprobrium  of  having  pro- 
voked the  terrible  war,  or  at  least  of  having  been  mainly 
responsible  for  it,  but  it  has  ruined  for  many  years  the 
productive  effort  of  the  most  cultured  and  industrious 
country  in  Europe.  v- 

Some  time  ago  the  Ex-president  of  the  French  Republic, 
R.  Poincare,  after  the  San  Remo  Conference,  apropos  of 
certain  differences  of  opinion  which  had  arisen  between 
Lloyd  George  and  myself  on  the  one  hand  and  Millerand  on 
the  other,  wrote  as  follows: 


PREFACE 

11  Italy  and  England  know  what  they  owe  to  France, 
just  as  France  knows  what  she  owes  to  them.  They  do 
not  wish  to  part  company  with  us,  nor  do  we  with  them. 
They  recognize  that  they  need  us,  as  we  have  need  of 
them.  Lloyd  George  and  Nitti  are  statesmen  too  shrewd 
and  experienced  not  to  understand  that  their  greatest 
Strength  will  always  lie  in  this  fundamental  axiom.  On 
leaving  San  Remo  for  Rome  or  London  let  them  ask  the 
opinion  of  the  'man  in  the  street.'  His  reply  will  be: 
'A  cunt  tout,  restez  unis  avec  la  France.'  " 

I  believe  that  Lloyd  George  and  I  share  the  same  cor- 
dial sentiments  toward  France.  We  have  gone  through  so 
much  suffering  and  anxiety  together  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  tear  asunder  chains  firmly  welded  by  common 
danger  and  pain.  France  will  always  remember  with  a 
sympathetic  glow  that  Italy  was  the  first  country  which 
proclaimed  her  neutrality,  on  August  2,  1914;  without 
that  proclamation  the  destinies  of  the  war  might  have 
taken  a  very  different  turn. 

But  the  work  of  reconstruction  in  Europe  is  in  the  in- 
terest of  France  herself.  She  has  hated  too  deeply  to 
render  any  sudden  cessation  of  her  hatred  possible,  and  the 
treaties  have  been  begotten  in  rancor  and  applied  with 
violence.  Even  as  the  life  of  men,  the  life  of  peoples  has 
days  of  joy  and  days  of  sorrow:  sunshine  follows  the 
storm.  The  whole  history  of  European  peoples  is  one  of 
alternate  victories  and  defeats.  It  is  the  business  of 
civilization  to  create  such  conditions  as  will  render  victory 
less  brutal  and  defeat  more  bearable. 

The  recent  treaties  which  regulate,  or  are  supposed  to 
regulate,  the  relations  among  peoples  are,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  nothing  but  a  terrible  regress,  the  denial  of  all  those 
principles  which  had  been  regarded  as  an  inalienable  con- 
quest of  public  right.     President  Wilson,  by  his  League  of 


PREFACE 

Nations,  has  been  the  most  responsible  factor  in  setting  up 
barriers  between  nations. 

Christopher  Columbus  sailed  from  Europe  hoping  to 
land  in  India,  whereas  he  discovered  America.  President 
Wilson  sailed  from  America  thinking  that  he  would  bring 
peace  to  Europe,  but  he  succeeded  in  bringing  her  only  con- 
fusion and  war. 

However,  we  should  judge  him  with  the  greatest  in- 
dulgence, for  his  intentions  were  undoubtedly  sincere  and 
honest. 

France  has  more  to  gain  than  any  other  country  in 
Europe  by  reverting  to  those  sound  principles  of  democ- 
racy which  constituted  her  former  glory.  We  do  not  for- 
get what  we  owe  her,  nor  the  noble  spirit  which  pervades 
some  of  her  historic  deeds.  But  noblesse  oblige,  and  all 
the  more  binding  is  her  duty  to  respect  tradition. 

When  France  shall  have  witnessed  the  gradual  unfold- 
ing of  approaching  events,  she  will  be  convinced  that  he 
who  has  spoken  to  her  the  language  of  truth  and  has 
sought  out  a  formula  permitting  the  peoples  of  Europe  to 
rediscover  their  path  in  life,  toward  life,  is  not  only  a 
friend,  but  a  friend  who  has  opportunely  brought  back  to 
France's  mind  and  heart  the  deeds  of  her  great  ances- 
tors at  the  time  when  fresh  deeds  of  greatness  and  glory 
await  accomplishment.  The  task  which  we  must  under- 
take with  our  inmost  feeling,  with  all  the  ardor  of  our 
faith,  is  to  find  once  more  the  road  to  peace,  to  utter  the 
word  of  brotherly  love  toward  oppressed  peoples,  and  to 
reconstruct  Europe,  which  is  gradually  sinking  to  the 
condition  of  the  Italy  of  the  fifteenth  century,  without  its 
effulgence  of  art  and  beauty:  thirty  states  mutually 
suspicious  of  one  another,  in  a  sea  of  programs  and  Balkan 
ideas. 


PREFACE 

Toward  the  achievement  of  this  work  of  civilization  the 
great  democracies  must  march  shoulder  to  shoulder.  At 
the  present  moment  I  hear  nothing  but  hostile  voices;  but 
the  time  is  not  far  distanl  when  my  friends  of  France  will 
be  marching  with  us  along  the  same  road.  They  already 
admit  in  private  many  things  which  they  will  presently 
be  obliged  to  recognize  openly.  Many  truths  are  the  fruit 
of  persuasion;  others,  again,  are  the  result  of  corrected 
delusions. 

I  place  my  greatest  trust  in  the  action  of  American  de- 
mocracy. 

Bjr  refusing  to  sanction  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  and  all 
the  other  peace  treaties,  the  American  Senate  has  given 
proof  of  the  soundest  political  wisdom:  the  United  States 
of  America  has  negotiated  its  own  separate  treaties,  and 
resumes  its  pre-war  relations  with  victors  and  vanquished 
alike. 

It  follows  that  all  that  has  been  done  hitherto  in  the 
way  of  treaties  is  rendered  worthless,  as  the  most  im- 
portant participant  has  withdrawn.  This  is  a  further 
motive  for  reflecting  that  it  is  impossible  to  continue  liv- 
ing much  longer  in  a  Europe  divided  into  two  camps  and 
in  a  medley  of  rancors  and  hatreds  which  tends  to  rein- 
force the  sense  of  hostility. 

It  is  of  the  greatest  interest  to  America  that  Europe 
should  once  more  be  the  wealthy,  prosperous  civilized 
Europe  which,  before  1914,  ruled  over  the  destinies  of  the 
world.  Only  by  so  great  an  effort  can  the  finest  con- 
quests of  civilization  come  back  to  their  own. 

We  should  remember  our  dead  in  order  that  their  mem- 
ory may  prevent  future  generations  from  being  saddened 
by  other  war  victims.  The  voices  of  those  whom  we  have 
lost  should  reach  us  as  voices  praying  for  the  return  of 


PREFACE 

that  civilization  which  shall  render  massacres  impossible, 
or  shall  at  least  diminish  the  violence  and  ferocity  of  war. 

Just  as  the  growing  dissolution  of  Europe  is  a  common 
danger,  so  is  the  renewal  of  the  bonds  of  solidarity  a  com- 
mon need. 

Let  us  all  work  toward  this  end,  even  if  at  first  we  may 
be  misunderstood  and  may  find  obstacles  in  our  way. 
Truth  is  on  the  march  and  will  assert  herself:  we  shall 
strike  the  main  road  after  much  dreary  wandering  in 
the  dark  lanes  of  prejudice  and  violence. 

Many  of  the  leading  men  of  Europe  and  America,  who 
in  the  intoxication  of  victory  proclaimed  ideas  of  violence 
and  revenge,  would  now  be  very  glad  to  reverse  their  at- 
titude, of  which  they  see  the  unhappy  results.  The  truth 
is  that  what  they  privately  recognize  they  will  not  yet 
openly  admit.     But  no  matter. 

The  confessions  which  many  of  them  have  made  to  me, 
both  verbally  and  in  writing,  induce  me  to  believe  that  my 
ideas  are  also  their  ideas,  and  that  they  only  seek  to 
express  them  in  the  form  and  on  the  occasions  less  antag- 
onistic to  the  currents  of  opinion  that  they  themselves  set 
up  in  the  days  when  the  chief  object  to  be  achieved 
seemed  to  be  the  vivisection  of  the  enemy. 

Recent  events,  however,  have  entirely  changed  the  situ- 
ation. 

As  I  said  before,  the  American  Senate  has  not  sanctioned 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  nor  will  it  approve  it.  The 
United  States  of  America  is  making  treaties  on  its  own 
account. 

Agreements  of  a  military  character  had  been  arrived  at 
in  Paris :  the  United  States  of  America  and  Great  Britain 
guaranteed  France  against  any  future  unjust  attack  by 
Germany.     The     American     Senate     did     not     sanction 


PREFACE 

the  agreement;  in  fact,  it  did  not  even  discuss  it. 
The  House  of  Commons  had  approved  it  subject  to  the 
consent  of  the  United  States.  Italy  lias  kept  aloof  from  all 
alliances.  As  a  result  of  this  situation,  the  four  Entente 
Powers,  "Allied  and  Associated"  (as  formerly  was  the 
official  term),  have  ceased  to  be  either  "allied"  or  "as- 
sociated"  after  the  end  of  the  war. 

On  the  other  hand,  Europe,  after  emerging  from  the 
war,  is  darkened  and  overcast  by  intrigues,  secret  agree- 
ments and  dissimulated  plots:  fresh  menaces  of  war  and 
fresh  explosions  of  dissatisfaction. 

Nothing  will  advance  peace  more  than  to  give  the 
people  a  knowledge  of  the  real  situation.  Errors  thrive  in 
darkness  while  truth  walks  abroad  in  the  full  light  of  day. 
It  has  been  my  intention  to  lay  before  the  public  those 
great  controversies  which  can  not  merely  form  the  object 
of  diplomatic  notes  or  of  posthumous  books  presented  to 
Parliament  in  a  more  or  less  incomplete  condition  after 
events  have  become  irreparable. 

The  sense  of  a  common  danger,  threatening  all  alike, 
will  prove  the  most  persuasive  factor  in  swerving  us  from 
the  perilous  route  which  we  are  now  following. 

As  a  result  of  the  war  the  bonds  of  economic  solidarity 
have  been  torn  asunder:  the  losers  in  the  war  must  not 
only  make  good  their  own  losses,  but,  according  to  the 
treaties,  are  expected  to  pay  for  all  the  damage  that  the 
war  has  caused.  Meanwhile  all  the  countries  of  Europe 
have  only  one  prevailing  fear:  German  competition.  In 
order  to  pay  the  indemnities  imposed  upon  her  (and  she 
can  only  do  it  by  exporting  goods),  Germany  is  obliged  to 
produce  at  the  lowest  possible  cost,  which  necessitates  the 
maximum  of  technical  progress.  But  exports  at  low  cost 
must  in  the  long  run  prove  detrimental,  if  not  destructive, 


PREFACE 

to  the  commerce  of  neutral  countries,  and  even  to  that  of 
the  victors.  Thus  in  all  tariffs  which  have  already  been 
published  or  which  are  in  course  of  preparation  there  is 
one  prevailing  object  in  view:  that  of  reducing  German 
competition,  which  practically  amounts  to  rendering  it 
impossible  for  her  to  pay  the  war  indemnity. 

If  winners  and  losers  were  to  abandon  war-time  ideas 
for  a  while,  and,  rather,  were  to  persuade  themselves  that 
the  oppression  of  the  vanquished  can  not  be  lasting,  and 
that  there  is  no  other  logical  way  out  of  the  difficulty 
but  that  of  small  indemnities  payable  in  a  few  years,  debit- 
ing to  the  losers  in  tolerable  proportion  all  debts  contracted 
toward  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  the  European 
situation  would  immediately  improve. 

Why  is  Europe  still  in  such  economic  confusion?  Be- 
cause the  confusion  of  moral  ideas  persists.  In  many 
countries  nerves  are  still  as  tense  as  a  bowstring,  and  the 
language  of  hatred  still  prevails.  For  some  countries,  as 
for  some  social  groups,  war  has  not  yet  ceased  to  be.  One 
hears  now  in  the  countries  of  the  victors  the  same  argu- 
ments used  as  were  current  coin  in  Germany  before  the 
war  and  during  the  first  phases  of  the  war ;  only  now  and 
then,  more  as  a  question  of  habit  than  because  they  are 
truly  felt,  we  hear  the  words  justice,  peace  and  democ- 
racy. 

Why  is  the  present  state  of  discomfort  and  dissatisfac- 
tion on  the  increase?  Because  almost  everywhere  in  Con- 
tinental Europe,  in  the  countries  which  have  emerged 
from  the  war,  the  rate  of  production  is  below  the  rate  of 
consumption,  and  many  social  groups,  instead  of  produc- 
ing more,  plan  to  possess  themselves  with  violence  of  the 
wealth  produced  by  others.  At  home,  the  social  classes, 
unable  to  resist,  are  threatened;  abroad,  the  vanquished, 


PREFACE 

equally  unable  to  resist,  are  menaced,  but  in  the  very 
menace  it  is  easy  to  discern  die  anxiety  of  the  winners. 
Confusion,  discomfort  and  dissatisfaction  thus  grow  apace. 

The  problem  of  Europe  is  above  all  a  moral  problem.  A 
great  step  toward  its  solution  will  have  been  accomplished 
when  conquerors  and  conquered  persuade  themselves  that 
only  by  a  common  effort  can  they  be  saved,  and  that  the 
best  enemy  indemnity  consists  in  peace  and  common  toil. 
Now  that  the  enemy  has  lost  all  he  possessed  and  threatens 
to  make  us  lose  the  fruits  of  victory,  one  thing  alone  is 
necessary:  to  rediscover  not  merely  the  language  but  the 
ideas  of  peace. 

During  one  of  the  last  international  conferences  at 
which  I  was  present,  and  over  which  I  presided,  at  San 
Remo,  after  a  long  exchange  of  views  with  the  British  and 
French  Premiers,  Lloyd  George  and  Millerand,  the  Ameri- 
can journalists  asked  me  to  give  them  my  ideas  on  peace : 
"What  is  the  most  necessary  thing  for  the  maintenance  of 
peace ?"  they  inquired. 

"One  thing  only,"  I  replied,  "is  necessary.  Europe 
must  smile  once  more. ' '  Smiles  have  vanished  from  every 
lip ;  nothing  has  remained  but  hatred,  menaces  and  nervous 
excitement. 

When  Europe  smiles  again  she  will  find  again  the  pol- 
itical bases  of  peace  and  will  drink  once  more  at  the  spring 
of  life.  Class  struggles  at  home,  in  their  acutest  form,  are 
like  the  competition  of  nationalism  abroad:  explosions  of 
cupidity,  masked  by  the  pretext  of  the  country's  great- 
ness. 

The  deeply  rooted  economic  crisis,  which  threatens  and 
prepares  new  wars,  the  deeply  rooted  social  crisis,  which 
threatens  and  prepares  new  civil  conflicts,  are  merely  the 
expression  of  a  state  of  mind.     Statesmen  are  the  most 


PREFACE 

'directly  responsible  for  the  continuation  oi  a  language  of 
violence;  they  should  be  the  first  to  speak  the  language 
of  peace. 

F.  N. 

ACQUAFREDDA   IN   BASILICATA. 

September  30,  1921. 

P.  S. — Peaceless  Europe  is  an  entirely  new  book,  which 
1  have  written  in  my  hermitage  of  Acquafredda,  facing 
the  sea;  it  contains,  however,  some  remarks  and  notices 
which  have  already  appeared  in  articles  written  by  me  for 
the  great  American  agency,  the  United  Press,  and  which 
have  been  reproduced  by  the  American  papers. 

I  have  repeatedly  stated  that  I  have  not  published  any 
document  that  was  not  meant  for  publication;  I  have 
availed  myself  of  my  knowledge  of  the  most  important  in- 
ternational acts  and  of  all  diplomatic  documents  merely  as 
a  guide,  but  it  is  on  facts  that  I  have  solidly  based  my 
considerations. 

J.  Keynes  and  Robert  Lansing  have  already  published 
some  very  important  things,  but  no  secret  documents;  re- 
cently, however,  Tardieu  and  Poincare,  in  the  interest  of 
the  French  nationalist  thesis  which  they  sustain,  have 
published  also  documents  of  a  more  private  nature.  Tar- 
dieu's  book  is  a  documentary  proof  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment's extremist  attitude  during  the  conference,  amply 
showing  that  the  present  form  of  peace  has  been  desired 
almost  exclusively  by  France,  and  that  the  others  have 
been  unwilling  parties  to  it.  Besides  his  articles  in  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Poincare  has  recently  published 
in  the  Temps  (September  12,  1921)  a  whole  secret  corre- 
spondence between  Poincare,  President  of  the  Republic, 
Clemenceau,  President  of  the  Council  of  Ministers,  the 
American  Delegation,  and,  above  all,  Lloyd  George. 


The  author  includes  in  the  book  numerous  secret 
official  documents  that  emanated  from  the  Peace  Con- 
ference and  which  came  into  his  hands  in  his  posi- 
tion, at  that  time,  as  Italian  prime  minister.  Among 
these  is  a  long  and  hitherto  unpublished  secret  letter 
sent  by  Lloyd  George  to  Nitti,  Wilson,  Clemenceau, 
and  the  other  members  of  the  Peace  Conference. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN 
EDITION 

Scarcely  had  this  book  appeared  in  the  Italian  edition 
than  it  was  translated  and  published  in  many  languages 
and  distributed  in  many  editions.  In  Europe  and  in 
America  it  aroused  both  in  parliaments  and  in  the  news- 
papers the  most  lively  discussion.  This  reception  proves 
but  one  thing :  the  ideas  which  the  book  contains,  and  they 
are  those  from  which  I  have  never  departed  even  at  the 
time  when  war  hatred  and  national  self-seeking  were  most 
widely  prevalent,  are  making  their  way.  They  will  pre- 
vail. 

France  received  as  a  result  of  the  war  new  territories, 
control  of  raw  materials,  new  colonies  and  new  organiza- 
tions abroad ;  Italy  remains  free  within  her  own  boundaries 
and  has  realized  even  if  but  partly  and  at  very  great  price 
some  of  her  national  aspirations,  yet  both  declare  that  they 
are  not  able  to  pay  the  debts  contracted  by  them  during 
the  war.  England  herself  has  not  yet  been  able  to  pay. 
On  the  other  hand,  Germany  is  not  free;  she  is  shackled 
and  exhausts  her  remaining  strength  in  the  struggle 
against  a  hopeless  financial  situation.  She  has  lost  her 
fleet,  her  colonies,  a  large  part  of  her  raw  materials,  her 
commercial  organization  abroad.  Furthermore  she  must 
at  heavy  cost  maintain  upon  her  own  soil  the  Entente's 
army  of  occupation.  The  expense  accounts  that  are  still 
being  charged  up  against  her  are  not  only  an  insult  to 
the  conquered;  they  are   also  a   reflection  on  the  right- 


PEEFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION 

mindedness  and  the  honesty  of  the  conquerors.  But  when 
nothing  is  more  evident  than  Germany's  insolvency  we 
hear  men  discussing  seriously  the  indemnities  which  the 
vanquished  are  to  pay  in  order  to  reestablish  the  finances 
of  the  victors. 

Perhaps,  as  has  been  shrewdly  said,  the  debts  contracted 
during  the  war  will  neither  be  paid  nor  canceled.  On  the 
one  hand  America  can  not  persuade  herself  that  her  citi- 
zens should  tax  themselves  heavily  in  order  to  contribute  to 
this  chaotic  European  situation  in  which  violence  rules 
supreme  and  in  which  questions  of  justice  and  right  are 
daily  trampled  under  foot.  On  the  other  hand  the  vic- 
torious countries  of  Europe  have  still  a  long  way  to  go 
before  they  will  find  any  improvement  in  their  situation. 
But  the  truths  which  were  erstwhile  neglected  and  dis- 
regarded are  daily  forcing  themselves  upon  our  attention. 
Many  intelligent  men  are  beginning  to  be  troubled  by 
doubts.  To  be  sure,  there  are  still  those  who  threaten  and 
maintain  the  extreme  position.  They  hold  that  there  must 
be  no  departure  from  the  treaties  that  have  been  made,  and 
in  the  name  of  the  rights  of  victory  they  defend  the  policy 
of  ruin.  The  attention  of  the  world,  however,  is  being 
centered  upon  the  question  of  the  reconstruction  of  Europe 
as  a  vital  necessity  and  as  the  condition  of  security  for 
the  victorious  countries  themselves. 

Even  Great  Britain,  which  is  the  richest  country  of 
Europe,  is  paralyzed  in  all  its  activities  as  a  result  of  the 
disappearance  of  her  Russian  trade  and  the  virtual  loss  of 
her  markets  in  Central  Europe.  In  the  memorandum  of 
Lloyd  George  at  the  conference  of  Cannes  there  is  the  ex- 
plicit statement  that  even  the  British  people  will  be  un- 
able to  prevent  themselves  from  being  drawn  down  into 
the  general  impoverishment  if  the  system  now  in  force  as 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION 

a  result  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  is  not  broken.  There 
are  in  Great  Britain  about  two  million  men  out  of  work 
and  the  subsidies  paid  for  the  relief  of  the  unemployed 
have  in  a  single  week  surpassed  two  million  pounds 
sterling.  "With  his  customary  clear-headedness,  Lloyd 
George  has  been  willing  to  recognize  the  truths  which  I 
have  proclaimed.  He  has  recognized  the  impending  dis- 
aster concerns  both  victors  and  vanquished.  He  has 
recognized  the  damage  already  done  to  European  civiliza- 
tion which  is  headed  toward  a  social  and  economic  catas- 
trophe. And  since  he  realized  that  every  month's  delay 
means  a  frightful  increase  in  human  misery  and  threatens 
civilization  itself,  he  decided  to  invite  the  governments  of 
France  and  Italy  to  work  together  in  close  cooperation. 
This  cooperation  must  aim  at  maintaining  peace  among  the 
nations  and  at  reducing  national  armaments,  for,  as  the 
British  Government  has  solemnly  affirmed,  only  in  this 
manner  will  Europe  obtain  that  feeling  of  security  which 
is  necessary  to  the  existence  of  civilized  peoples. 

Undoubtedly  further  conferences  will  follow  that  held 
in  Washington,  and  it  is  necessary  that  the  victors  and 
the  vanquished  of  to-day,  forgetting  their  former  antag- 
onisms, meet  together  and  discuss  coolly  the  common 
dangers  of  the  future. 

The  decisions  which  have  been  reached  in  recent  months 
in  nearly  all  parliaments,  and  the  communications  which 
I  have  received  since  the  publication  of  my  book  from  some 
of  the  most  eminent  statesmen  of  Europe  and  America, 
show  that  the  truth  is  making  its  way.  Furthermore  many 
of  the  most  illustrious  and  influential  political  figures  in 
Europe,  though  they  do  not  yet  dare  to  shatter  the  il- 
lusion which  still  dominates  the  masses  in  many  of  the 
victorious  countries,  now  no  longer  conceal  the  fact  that 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION 

henceforth  the  question  of  reconstruction  interests  almost 
to  the  same  degree  both  the  conquerors  and  the  conquered. 
We  shall  not  reestablish  our  finances,  and  what  is  more 
important,  we  shall  have  no  assurance  of  safety,  without  a 
true  peace;  and  we  shall  not  establish  a  true  peace  without 
a  larger  measure  of  justice.  And  this  is  the  case  since  it 
is  evident  that  to-day  more  than  ever  before  problems  that 
have  to  do  with  our  financial  prosperity  are  merely  prob- 
lems of  justice  and  of  peace. 

F.  N. 
March  20,  1922. 


The  present  volume — the  first  to  be  published  in  the 
United  States — is  a  translation  of  the  second  revised  and 
enlarged  edition  of  Ex-premier  Francesco  Nitti's  L'Eu- 
ropa  Senza  Pace.  As  a  result  of  the  discussion  which  the 
first  edition  aroused  on  the  Continent  and  in  England  and 
because  of  changes  in  the  rapidly  shifting  European  situa- 
tion, Signor  Nitti  has  made  a  number  of  additions  which 
are  here  for  the  first  time  offered  for  the  consideration  of 
the  English  reading  public.  For  the  translation  of  these 
newer  sections  the  publishers  wish  to  acknowledge  their 
obligations  to  Christian  Gauss,  Professor  of  Modern  Lan- 
guages at  Princeton  University.  Professor  Gauss  has  also 
corrected  and  thoroughly  revised  the  original  translation, 
made  in  England  and  is  happily  responsible  for  the  pres- 
ent volume's  greater  clarity  as  well  as  its  substantial  ac- 
curacy. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I     Europe  Without  Peace     .....         1 

II      The  Peace  Treaties  and  the  Continua- 
tion of  the  War 24 

III      The  Peace  Treaties:  Their  Origin  and 

Aims 60 

IV  The  Conquerors  and  the  Conquered      .     128 

V  The  Indemnity  from  the  Defeated  En- 

emy and  the  Anxieties  of  the  Victors     200 

VI      Europe's  Post-war  Reconstruction  and 

Peace  Policy 264 

Index    .     .     >     >:    >;     .•    w    w    M    >:     .     295 


THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 


EUKOPE  WITHOUT  PEACE 

Is  theke  any  one  who  still  remembers  Europe  as 
it  was  in  the  first  months  of  1914  or  who  can  clearly 
recall  the  situation  that  preceded  the  first  year  of 
the  war?  It  all  seems  terribly  remote,  something 
like  a  prehistoric  era,  not  only  because  the  conditions 
of  life  have  changed,  but  because  our  view-point  on 
life  has  swerved  to  a  different  angle. 

Something  like  thirty  million  dead  have  created  a 
chasm  between  two  ages.  War  killed  many  millions, 
disease  accounted  for  many  more,  but  the  hardiest 
reaper  has  been  famine.  The  dead  have  built  up  a 
great  barrier  between  the  Europe  of  yesterday  and 
the  Europe  of  to-day. 

We  have  lived  through  two  historic  epochs,  not 
through  two  different  periods.  Europe  was  happy 
and  prosperous,  while  now,  after  the  terrible  World 
War,  she  is  threatened  with  a  decline  and  a  reversion 
to  brutality  which  suggest  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  We  ourselves  do  not  quite  understand 
what  is  happening  around  us.    More  than  two-thirds 

1 


2  THE  WEECK  OF  EUROPE 

of  Europe  is  in  a  state  of  ferment,  and  everywhere 
there  prevails  a  vague  sense  of  uneasiness,  that 
tends  to  make  impossible  enterprises  which  call  for 
unified  and  coordinated  social  effort.  We  live,  as 
the  saying  is,  "from  hand  to  mouth." 

Before  1914,  Europe  had  enjoyed  a  prolonged 
period  of  peace,  attaining  a  degree  of  wealth  and 
civilization  unrivaled  in  the  past. 

In  Central  Europe,  Germany  had  sprung  up. 
After  the  Napoleonic  invasions,  in  the  course  of  a 
century,  Germany,  which  a  hundred  years  ago 
seemed  of  all  European  countries  the  least  disposed 
to  militarism,  had  developed  into  a  great  military 
monarchy.  From  being  the  most  decentralized  coun- 
try, Germany  had  in  reality  become  the  most  unified 
state.  But  what  constituted  her  strength  was  not  so 
much  her  army  and  navy  as  the  prestige  of  her  in- 
tellectual development.  She  had  achieved  it  labo- 
riously, almost  painfully,  on  a  soil  that  was  not  fer- 
tile and  within  a  limited  territory,  but,  thanks  to  the 
tenacity  of  her  effort,  in  every  branch  of  activitiy 
she  succeeded  in  winning  a  prominent  place  in  the 
world-race  for  supremacy.  Her  universities,  her 
institutes  for  technical  instruction,  her  schools,  were 
a  model  for  the  whole  world.  In  the  course  of  a  few 
years  she  had  built  up  a  merchant  fleet  that  seriously 
threatened  those  of  other  countries.  Having  arrived 
too  late  to  create  a  real  colonial  empire  of  her  own, 
such  as  those  of  France  and  England,  she  neverthe- 
less succeeded  in  exploiting  her  colonies  most  intel- 
ligently. 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE  3 

In  the  field  of  industry  she  appeared  to  beat  all 
competitors  from  a  technical  point  of  view;  and 
even  in  those  industries  which  were  not  hers  by 
habit  and  tradition  she  developed  so  powerful  an 
organization  as  to  appear  almost  miraculous.  Ger- 
many held  first  place  not  only  in  the  metallurgical 
and  mechanical  industries,  but  also  in  the  production 
of  dyes  and  chemicals.  Men  went  there  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  not  only  to  trade  but  to  acquire 
knowledge.  An  ominous  threat  weighed  on  the  em- 
pire, namely  the  constitution  of  the  state  itself,  es- 
sentially militaristic  and  bureaucratic.  Not  even  in 
Russia,  perhaps,  were  the  reins  of  power  held  in 
the  hands  of  so  few  as  they  were  in  Germany  and 
Austria-Hungary. 

A  few  years  before  the  World  War  one  of  the 
leading  European  statesmen  told  me  that  there  was 
everything  to  be  feared  for  the  future  of  Europe 
where  the  peoples  of  Russia,  Germany  and  Austria- 
Hungary,  about  two-thirds  of  the  whole  continent, 
were  governed  in  an  almost  irresponsible  manner  by 
men  without  will  or  intelligence :  the  czar  of  Russia ; 
the  German  kaiser,  a  madman  without  a  spark 
of  genius,  and  the  emperor  of  Austria-Hungary,  an 
obstinate  old  man  hedged  in  by  his  ambition.  Not 
more  than  thirty  persons,  he  added,  act  as  a  con- 
trolling force  on  these  three  irresponsible  sov- 
ereigns, who  might  assume,  on  their  own  initiative, 
the  most  terrible  responsibilities. 

The  magnificent  spiritual  gifts  of  the  Germans 
gave  them  an  Immanuel  Kant,  the  greatest  thinker  of 


4  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

modern  times,  Beethoven,  their  greatest  exponent  of 
music,  and  Goethe,  their  greatest  poet.  But  the 
imperial  Germany  which  came  after  the  victory  of 
1870  had  limited  the  spirit  of  independence  even  in 
the  manifestations  of  literature  and  art.  There  still 
existed  in  Germany  the  most  widely  known  men  of 
science,  the  best  universities,  the  most  up-to-date 
schools ;  but  the  clumsy  mechanism  tended  to  crush 
rather  than  to  encourage  all  personal  initiative. 
Great  manifestations  of  art  or  thought  are  not  pos- 
sible without  the  most  ample  spiritual  liberty.  Ger- 
many was  the  most  highly  organized  country  from 
a  scientific  point  of  view,  but  at  the  same  time  the 
country  in  which  there  was  the  least  liberty  for  indi- 
vidual initiative.  It  went  on  like  a  huge  machine: 
that  explains  why,  after  the  war  had  thrown  it  out 
of  gear,  it  almost  stopped,  and  the  whole  life  of  the 
nation  was  paralyzed  while  there  were  very  few  indi- 
vidual impulses  of  reaction.  Imperial  Germany  has 
always  been  lacking  in  political  ability,  perhaps  not 
only  through  a  temperamental  failing,  but  chiefly 
owing  to  her  militaristic  education. 

Before  the  war,  Germany  surpassed  her  neighbors 
in  all  those  branches  of  activity  which  are  the  result 
of  organized  effort:  in  science,  industry,  banking, 
commerce,  etc.  But  in  one  thing  she  did  not  excel, 
and  still  less  after  the  war,  namely,  in  politics. 
When  the  German  people  was  blessed  with  a  politi- 
cal genius,  such  as  Frederick  the  Great  or  Bismarck, 
it  achieved  the  height  of  greatness  and  glory.  But 
when  the  same  people,  after  obtaining  the  maximum 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE  5 

of  power,  found  on  its  path  William  II  with  his 
mediocre  collaborators,  it  ruined,  by  war,  a  colossal 
work,  not  only  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  country, 
but  also  to  that  of  the  victors  themselves,  of  whom 
it  can  not  be  said  with  any  amount  of  certainty,  as 
far  as  the  Continental  Powers  are  concerned, 
whether  they  are  the  winners  or  the  losers,  so  great 
is  the  ruin  threatening  them,  and  so  vast  the  material 
and  moral  losses  sustained. 

I  have  always  felt  the  deepest  aversion  for  Will- 
iam II.  As  recently  as  ten  years  ago  he  was  still 
treated  with  the  greatest  sympathy  both  in  Europe 
and  America.  Even  democracies  regarded  with  ill- 
concealed  admiration  the  work  of  the  kaiser,  who 
brought  everywhere  his  voice,  his  enthusiasm,  his 
activity,  to  the  service  of  Germany.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  his  speeches  were  poor  in  phraseology,  a  mere 
conglomerate  of  violence,  prejudice  and  ignorance. 
As  no  one  believed  in  the  possibility  of  a  war,  no 
one  troubled  about  it.  But  after  the  war  nothing 
has  been  more  harmful  to  Germany  than  the  memory 
of  those  ugly  speeches,  unrelieved  by  any  noble  idea, 
and  full  of  a  clumsy  vulgarity  set  forth  in  a  preten- 
tiously solemn  and  majestic  fashion.  Some  of  his 
threatening  utterances — such  as  the  address  to  the 
troops  sailing  for  China  in  order  to  quell  the  Boxer 
rebellion,  the  constant  association  in  all  his  speeches 
of  the  great  idea  of  God,  with  the  ravings  of  a 
megalomaniac,  the  frenzied  oratory  in  which  he  in- 
dulged at  the  beginning  of  the  war — have  harmed 
Germany  more  than  anything  else.    It  is  possible  to 


6  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

lose  nobly ;  but  to  have  lost  a  great  war  after  having 
won  so  many  battles  would  not  have  harmed  the  Ger- 
man people  if  it  had  not  been  represented  abroad  by 
the  presumptuous  vulgarity  of  the  kaiser  and  of  all 
the  members  of  his  entourage,  who  were  more  or 
less  guilty  of  the  same  attitude. 

Before  the  war  Germany  had  everywhere  attained 
first  place  in  all  forms  of  activity,  except,  perhaps, 
in  certain  spiritual  and  artistic  manifestations.  She 
admired  herself  too  much  and  with  too  evident  a 
complacency,  but  she  achieved  for  herself  through 
her  magnificent  expansion  a  position  of  unrivaled 
greatness  and  prosperity. 

By  common  consent  Germany  held  first  place. 
Probably  this  consciousness  of  power,  together  with 
the  somewhat  brutal  forms  of  the  struggle  for  indus- 
trial supremacy,  as  in  the  case  of  the  iron  industry, 
threw  a  mysterious  and  threatening  shadow  over  the 
seemingly  monumental  structure  of  the  empire. 

When  I  was  minister  of  commerce  in  1913  I  re- 
ceived a  deputation  of  German  business  men  who 
wished  to  confer  with  me  on  the  Italian  customs 
regime.  They  spoke  openly  of  the  necessity  of 
possessing  themselves  of  the  iron  mines  of  French 
Lorraine;  they  looked  on  war  as  a  factor  in  indus- 
trial development.  Germany  had  enough  coal  but 
needed  iron,  and  the  Press  of  the  iron  industry  dis- 
seminated ideas  of  war.  After  the  conclusion  of 
peace,  when  France,  through  a  series  of  wholly  un- 
expected events,  saw  Germany  prostrate  at  her  feet 
and  without  an  army,  the  same  phenomenon  took 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE  7 

place.  The  iron  industry  is  gaining  strength  in 
France;  she  has  the  iron  and  now  she  wants  coal. 
Should  she  succeed  in  getting  it,  German  production 
would  be  doomed.  To  deprive  Germany  of  Upper 
Silesia  would  mean  killing  production  after  having 
disorganized  the  foundations  of  its  development. 

Seven  years  ago,  or  thereabouts,  Germany  was 
flourishing  in  an  unprecedented  manner  and  pre- 
sented the  most  favorable  conditions  for  developing. 
The  prosperity  of  her  increasing  population  was 
amazing.  Placed  in  the  center  of  Europe  after  hav- 
ing withstood  the  push  of  so  many  peoples,  she  had 
attained  an  unrivaled  economic  position. 

Close  to  Germany  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire 
was  uniting,  not  without  difficulty,  eleven  different 
peoples,  and  this  union  was  tending  to  the  common 
elevation  of  all.  The  vast  monarchy,  thanks  to  a 
process  of  slow  agglomeration  and  methods  of  vio- 
lence and  administrative  sagacity,  represented,  per- 
haps, the  most  interesting  historic  attempt  on  the 
part  of  different  peoples  to  achieve  a  common  rule 
and  discipline  on  the  same  territory.  Having  suc- 
cessfully weathered  the  most  terrible  financial 
crises,  and  having  healed  in  half  a  century  the 
wounds  of  two  great  wars  which  she  had  lost,  Aus- 
tria-Hungary lived  in  the  effort  of  holding  together 
Germans,  Magyars,  Slavs  and  Italians  and  keeping 
them  from  flying  at  one  another's  throats.  Time 
will  show  that  the  effort  of  Austria-Hungary  has  not 
been  lost  for  civilization. 

Russia  represented  the  largest  empire  that  has 


8  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

ever  existed,  and  in  spite  of  its  defective  political 
regime  was  daily  progressing.  Perhaps  for  the  first 
time  in  history  an  immense  empire  of  twenty-one 
millions  and  a  half  of  square  kilometers,  eighty-four 
times  the  size  of  Italy,  almost  three  times  as  large  as 
the  United  States  of  America,  was  ruled  by  a  single 
man.  From  the  Baltic  to  the  Yellow  Sea,  from  Fin- 
land to  the  Caucasus,  one  law  and  one  rule  governed 
the  most  different  peoples  scattered  over  an  im- 
mense territory.  The  methods  by  which,  after 
Peter  the  Great,  the  old  Duchy  of  Muscovy  had  been 
transformed  into  an  empire,  still  lived  in  the  ad- 
ministration ;  they  survive  to-day  in  the  Bolshevist 
organization,  which  represents  less  a  revolution 
than  a  hieratic  and  brutal  form  of  violence  placed 
at  the  service  of  a  political  organization. 

The  war  between  Russia  and  Japan  had  revealed 
all  the  perils  of  a  political  organization  exclusively 
based  on  central  authority  represented  by  a  few 
irresponsible  men  under  the  apparent  rule  of  a 
sovereign  not  gifted  with  the  slightest  glimmer  of 
will  power. 

Those  who  exalt  nationalist  sentiments  and  pin 
their  faith  on  imperialistic  systems  fail  to  realize 
that  while  the  greatest  push  toward  the  war  came 
from  countries  living  under  a  less  liberal  regime, 
those  very  countries  gave  proof  of  the  least  power 
of  resistance.  Modern  war  means  the  full  exploita- 
tion of  all  the  human  and  economic  resources  of  each 
belligerent  country.  The  greater  a  nation's  wealth 
the  greater  is  the  possibility  to  hold  out,  and  the 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE  9 

perfection  of  arms  and  weapons  is  in  direct  ratio 
with  the  degree  of  technical  progress  attained. 
Moreover,  the  combatants  and  the  possibility  of 
using  them  are  in  relation  with  the  number  of  per- 
sons who  possess  sufficient  skill  and  instruction  to 
direct  the  war.  Germany,  Great  Britain,  France, 
Italy,  the  United  States  of  America,  were  able  with- 
out any  appreciable  effort  to  improvise  an  enormous 
number  of  officers  for  the  war,  transforming  pro- 
fessional men,  engineers  and  technicians  into  offi- 
cers. Russia,  who  did  not  have  a  real  industrial 
bourgeoisie  nor  a  sufficient  development  of  the  mid- 
dle classes,  was  only  able  to  furnish  an  enormous 
number  of  combatants,  but  an  insufficient  organiza- 
tion from  a  technical  and  military  point  of  view,  and 
a  very  limited  number  of  officers.  While  on  a  peace 
footing  her  army  was  the  largest  in  the  world,  over 
one  million  three  hundred  thousand  men ;  when  her 
officers  began  to  fail  Russia  was  unable  to  replace 
them  as  rapidly  as  the  proportion  of  nine  or  ten 
times  more  than  normal  required  by  the  war. 

Russia  has  always  had  a  latent  force  of  develop- 
ment ;  there  is  within  her  a  vis  inertice  equivalent  to 
a  mysterious  energy  of  expansion.  Her  birth-rate 
is  higher  than  that  of  any  other  European  country; 
she  does  not  progress,  she  increases.  Her  weight 
acts  as  a  menace  to  neighboring  countries,  and 
although  by  a  mysterious  historic  law  the  primitive 
migrations  of  peoples  and  the  ancient  invasions  for 
the  most  part  originated  within  the  territories  now 
occupied  by   Russia,   the   latter  nevertheless    sue- 


10  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

ceeded  in  amalgamating  widely  different  peoples 
and  in  creating  unity  where  no  affinity  appeared 
possible. 

At  any  rate,  although  suffering  from  an  excess- 
ively centralized  government  and  a  form  of  consti- 
tution that  did  not  allow  the  development  of  popular 
energies  nor  a  sufficient  education  of  the  people, 
Russia  was  perhaps,  half  a  century  before  the  war, 
the  European  country  which,  considering  the  diffi- 
culties in  her  path,  had  accomplished  most  progress. 

European  Russia,  with  her  yearly  excess  of  from 
one  million  and  a  half  to  two  million  births  over 
deaths,  with  the  development  of  her  industries  and 
the  formation  of  important  commercial  centers,  had 
been  progressing  very  rapidly  and  was  about  to 
become  the  center  of  European  politics. 

When  it  will  be  possible  to  examine  carefully  the 
diplomatic  documents  of  the  war,  and  time  will  allow 
us  to  judge  them  calmly,  it  will  be  seen  that  Russia's 
attitude  was  the  real  and  underlying  cause  of  the 
world-conflict.  She  alone  promoted  and  kept  alive 
the  agitations  in  Serbia  and  of  the  Slavs  in  Austria ; 
she  alone  in  Germany's  eyes  represented  the  peril 
of  the  future.  Germany  has  never  believed  in  a 
French  danger.  She  knew  very  well  that  France, 
single-handed,  could  never  have  withstood  Germany, 
numerically  so  much  her  superior.  Russia  was  the 
only  danger  that  Germany  saw,  and  the  continual 
increase  of  the  Russian  Army  was  her  gravest  pre- 
occupation. Before  the  war,  when  Italy  was  Ger- 
many's ally,  the  leading  German   statesmen  with 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE  11 

whom  I  had  occasion  to  discuss  the  situation  did 
nothing  but  allude  to  the  Russian  peril.  It  was 
known  (and  subsequent  facts  have  amply  proved  it) 
that  the  czar  was  absolutely  devoid  of  will  power, 
that  he  was  led  and  carried  away  by  conflicting 
currents,  and  that  his  advisers  were  for  the  most 
part  favorable  to  the  war.  After  the  Japanese  de- 
feat the  militarist  party  felt  keenly  the  need  for  just 
such  a  great  military  revival  and  a  brilliant  revanche 
in  Europe. 

Possessing  an  enormous  wealth  of  raw  materials 
and  an  immense  territory,  Russia  represented 
Europe's  great  resource,  her  support  for  the  future. 

If  the  three  great  empires  had  attained  enviable 
prosperity  and  development  in  1914,  when  the  war 
broke  out,  the  three  great  Western  democracies, 
Great  Britain,  France  and  Italy,  had  likewise  pro- 
gressed immensely. 

Great  Britain,  proud  of  her  "splendid  isolation," 
and  ruler  of  the  seas,  traded  in  every  country  of  the 
world.  Having  the  most  extensive  empire,  she  was 
also  financially  the  greatest  creditor  country :  credi- 
tor of  America  and  Asia,  of  the  new  African  States 
and  of  Australia.  Perhaps  all  this  wealth  had 
before  the  war  somewhat  diminished  the  spirit  of 
enterprise  and  it  may  be  that  popular  culture  also 
suffered  from  this  unprecedented  prosperity.  There 
was  an  absence  of  that  spasmodic  effort  noticeable 
in  Germany,  but  a  continuous  and  secure  expansion, 
an  indisputed  supremacy  was  apparent.  Although 
somewhat  preoccupied  at  Germany's  progress  and 


12  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

regarding  it  as  a  peril  for  the  future,  Great  Britain 
attached  more  importance  to  the  problems  of  her 
empire,  namely  to  her  internal  constitution:  like 
ancient  Rome,  she  was  a  truly  imperial  country  in 
the  security  of  her  supremacy,  in  her  calm,  in  her 
forbearance. 

France  continued  patiently  to  accumulate  wealth. 
She  did  not  increase  her  population,  but  ably  added 
to  her  territory  and  her  savings.  Threatened  with 
the  phenomenon  known  to  political  economists  under 
the  name  of  "oliganthropy,"  or  lack  of  men,  she 
had  founded  a  colonial  empire  that  may  be  regarded 
as  the  largest  on  earth.  It  is  true  that  the  British 
colonies,  even  before  the  war,  covered  an  area  of 
thirty  million  square  kilometers,  while  France's 
colonial  empire  exceeded  but  slightly  twelve  millions. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  British  colonies 
are  not  colonies  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word, 
but  consist  chiefly  in  dominions  which  enjoy  an 
almost  complete  autonomy.  Canada  alone  repre- 
sents about  one-third  of  the  territories  of  the  British 
Dominions;  Australia  and  New  Zealand  more  than 
one-fourth,  and  Australasia,  the  South  African 
Union  and  Canada  put  together  represent  more  than 
two-thirds  of  the  empire,  while  India  accounts  for 
about  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  missing  third.  Next  to 
England,  France  was  the  most  important  creditor 
country.  Her  astonishing  capacity  for  saving  in- 
creased in  proportion  with  her  wealth.  Without 
having  Germany's  force  of  development  and  Great 
Britain's  power  of  expansion,  France   enjoyed  a 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE      13 

wonderful  prosperity,  and  her  wealth  was  scattered 
all  over  the  world. 

Italy  had  arisen  under  the  greatest  difficulties, 
but  in  less  than  fifty  years  of  unity  she  progressed 
steadily.  Having  a  territory  too  small  and  moun- 
tainous for  a  population  already  overflowing  and 
constantly  on  the  increase,  Italy  had  been  unable  to 
exploit  the  limited  resources  of  her  subsoil  and  had 
been  forced  to  build  up  her  industries  in  conditions 
far  less  favorable  than  those  of  other  countries. 
Italy  is  perhaps  the  only  great  nation  that  has  suc- 
ceeded in  developing  industries  without  having  any 
coal  of  her  own  and  very  little  iron.  But  the  ac- 
quisition of  wealth,  extremely  difficult  at  first,  had 
gradually  been  rendered  more  easy  by  the  improve- 
ment in  technical  instruction  and  methods,  for  the 
most  part  borrowed  from  Germany.  On  the  eve  of 
the  war,  after  a  period  of  thirty-three  years,  the 
Triple  Alliance  had  rendered  the  greatest  services 
to  Italy,  fully  confirming  Crispi  's  political  intuition. 
France,  with  whom  we  had  had  serious  differences 
of  opinion,  especially  after  the  Tunis  affair,  did  not 
dare  to  threaten  Italy  because  the  latter  belonged  to 
the  Triple  Alliance ;  for  the  same  reason  all  ideas  of 
a  conflict  with  Austria-Hungary  had  been  set  aside 
because  of  her  forming  part  of  the  "Triplice." 

During  the  Triple  Alliance  Italy  built  up  all  her 
industries,  she  consolidated  her  national  unity  and 
prepared  her  economic  transformation,  which  was 
fraught  with  considerable  difficulties.  As  a  result 
of  the  fecundity  of  her  race  and  the  narrowness  of 


14  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

her  confines  her  sons  and  her  power  were  rapidly 
spreading  to  all  parts  of  the  earth. 

The  greater  states  were  surrounded  by  minor 
nations  which  had  achieved  considerable  wealth  and 
great  prosperity. 

Europe  throughout  her  history  had  never  been  so 
rich,  so  far  advanced  on  the  road  to  progress.  Nor 
had  she  ever  before  achieved  in  so  high  a  degree  the 
sense  of  community  of  civilization  and  of  life.  As 
regards  production  and  exchanges  she  was  really  a 
living  unity.  The  vital  lymph  was  not  limited  to  this 
or  that  country,  but  flowed  with  an  even  current 
through  the  veins  and  arteries  of  the  various  nations 
through  the  great  organizations  of  capital  and  labor, 
promoting  a  continuous  and  increasing  solidarity 
among  all  the  parties  concerned. 

In  fact,  the  idea  of  solidarity  had  greatly  pro- 
gressed :  economic,  moral  and  spiritual  solidarity. 

Moreover,  the  idea  of  peace,  although  threatened 
by  military  oligarchies  and  by  industrial  corners, 
was  firmly  based  on  the  sentiments  of  the  great  ma- 
jority. The  strain  of  barbaric  blood  which  still  fer- 
ments in  many  populations  of  Central  Europe  con- 
stituted— it  is  true — a  standing  menace ;  but  no  one 
dreamed  that  the  threat  was  about  to  be  followed, 
lightning-like,  by  facts,  and  that  we  were  on  the  eve 
of  a  catastrophe. 

Europe  had  forgotten  what  hunger  meant.  Never 
had  Europe  had  at  her  disposal  such  abundant 
economic  resources  or  a  greater  increase  in  wealth. 

Wealth  is  not  our  final  object  in  life.     But  a 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE  15 

minimum  of  means  is  an  indispensable  condition  of 
life  and  happiness.  Excessive  wealth  may  lead  both 
to  moral  elevation  and  to  depression  and  ruin. 

Europe  had  not  only  increased  her  wealth  but 
developed  the  solidarity  of  her  interests.  Europe  is 
a  small  continent,  about  as  large  as  Canada  or  the 
United  States  of  America.  But  her  economic  ties 
and  interests  had  been  steadily  on  the  increase. 

Now  the  development  of  her  wealth  meant  for 
Europe  the  development  of  her  moral  ideas  and  of 
her  social  life  and  aspirations.  We  admire  a  country 
not  so  much  for  its  wealth  as  for  the  tasks  which  that 
wealth  enables  it  to  accomplish. 

Although  peace  be  the  aspiration  of  all  peoples, 
even  as  physical  health  is  the  aspiration  of  all  living 
beings,  there  are  wars  that  can  not  be  avoided,  as 
there  are  diseases  that  help  us  to  overcome  an  or- 
ganic crisis  to  which  we  might  otherwise  succumb. 
War  and  peace  can  not  be  regarded  as  absolutely 
bad  or  absolutely  good  and  desirable ;  war  is  often 
waged  in  order  to  secure  peace.  In  certain  cases 
war  is  not  only  a  necessary  condition  of  lif  e  but  may 
be  an  indispensable  condition  of  progress. 

We  must  consider  and  analyze  the  sentiments  and 
psychological  causes  that  bring  about  a  war.  A  war 
waged  by  a  downtrodden  nation  to  reestablish  its 
independence  from  another  nation  is  perfectly  legiti- 
mate, even  from  the  point  of  view  of  abstract  mor- 
ality. A  war  that  has  for  its  object  the  conquest  of 
political  or  religious  liberty  can  not  be  condemned 
even  by  the  most  confirmed  pacificist. 


16  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Taken  as  a  whole,  the  wars  fought  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  wars  of  nationality,  of  independence, 
of  unity,  even  colonial  wars,  were  of  a  character  far 
less  odious  than  that  of  the  great  conflict  which  has 
devastated  Europe  and  upset  the  economic  condi- 
tions of  the  world.  It  has  not  only  been  the  greatest 
war  in  history,  but  in  its  consequences  it  threatens 
to  prove  the  worst  war  that  has  ravaged  Europe  in 
modern  times. 

After  nearly  every  nineteenth-century  war  there 
has  been  a  marked  revival  of  human  activity.  But 
this  unprecedented  clash  of  peoples  has  reduced  the 
energy  of  all ;  it  has  darkened  the  minds  of  men,  and 
spread  the  spirit  of  violence. 

Europe  will  be  able  to  make  up  for  her  losses  in 
lives  and  wealth.  Time  heals  even  the  most  painful 
wounds.  But  one  thing  she  has  lost  which  she  must 
recover  or  she  will  become  decadent.  That  one  thing 
is  the  spirit  of  solidarity. 

After  the  victory  of  the  Entente  the  microbes  of 
hate  have  developed  and  flourished  in  special  cul- 
tures, consisting  of  national  egotism,  imperialism, 
and  a  mania  for  conquest  and  expansion. 

The  peace  treaties  imposed  on  the  vanquished  are 
nothing  but  instruments  of  oppression.  What  more 
could  Germany  herself  have  done  had  she  won  the 
war?  Perhaps  her  terms  would  have  been  more 
lenient.  Certainly  they  would  not  have  been  more 
severe,  for  she  would  have  understood  that  condi- 
tions such  as  we  have  imposed  on  the  losers  are  sim- 
ply inapplicable. 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE      17 

Three  years  have  elapsed  since  the  end  of  the 
war,  two  since  the  conclusion  of  peace,  nevertheless 
Europe  has  to-day  more  men  under  arms  than  in  pre- 
war times.  The  sentiment  of  nationality,  twisted 
and  transformed  into  nationalism,  aims  at  the  sub- 
jugation and  oppression  of  other  peoples.  No 
civilized  coordinated  life  is  possible  where  each  na- 
tion proposes  to  harm  instead  of  helping  its  neigh- 
bor. 

The  spread  of  hatred  among  peoples  has  every- 
where rendered  more  difficult  the  internal  relations 
between  social  classes  and  the  economic  life  of  each 
country.  Looking  forward  to  further  conflicts,  and 
goaded  on  by  that  spirit  of  unrest  and  intolerance 
engendered  everywhere  by  the  war,  workers  are  be- 
coming every  day  more  exacting.  They,  too,  claim 
their  share  of  the  spoils;  they,  too,  clamor  for  in- 
demnities from  the  enemy.  The  same  manifesta- 
tions of  hate,  the  same  violence  of  language,  spread 
from  people  to  people  and  from  class  to  class. 

This  tremendous  war,  which  the  peoples  of 
Europe  have  fought  and  suffered,  has  not  only  bled 
the  losers  almost  to  death,  but  it  has  deeply  per- 
turbed the  very  life  and  existence  of  the  victors.  It 
has  not  produced  a  single  manifestation  of  art  nor 
a  single  moral  affirmation.  For  the  last  seven  years 
the  universities  of  Europe  appear  to  be  stricken  with 
paralysis :  not  one  outstanding  personality  has  been 
revealed. 

In  almost  every  country  the  war  has  brought  a 
sense  of  internal  dissolution:  everywhere  this  dis- 


18  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

quieting  phenomenon  is  more  or  less  noticeable. 
With  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  Great  Britain,  whose 
privileged  insular  situation,  enormous  merchant 
marine  and  flourishing  trade  in  coal  have  enabled 
her  to  resume  her  pre-war  economic  existence  almost 
entirely,  no  country  has  noted  any  perceptible  im- 
provement in  its  condition  since  the  close  of  the  war. 
The  rates  of  exchange  soar  daily  to  fantastic 
heights,  and  insuperable  barriers  to  the  commerce  of 
European  nations  are  being  created.  People  work 
less  than  they  did  in  pre-war  times,  but  everywhere 
a  tendency  is  noticeable  to  consume  more.  Austria, 
Germany,  Italy,  France  are  not  different  phe- 
nomena, but  different  manifestations  and  phases  of 
the  same  phenomenon. 

Before  the  war  Europe,  in  spite  of  her  great  sub- 
divisions, represented  a  living  economic  whole. 
To-day  there  are  not  only  victors  and  vanquished, 
but  currents  of  hate,  ferments  of  violence,  a  hunger- 
ing after  conquests,  an  unscrupulous  cornering  of 
raw  materials  carried  out  brutally  and  almost  osten- 
tatiously in  the  name  of  the  rights  of  victory :  a  sit- 
uation that  renders  production,  let  alone  its  develop- 
ment and  increase,  utterly  impossible. 

The  treaty  system  as  applied  after  the  war  has 
divided  Europe  into  two  distinct  parts:  the  losers, 
held  under  the  military  and  economic  control  of  the 
victors,  are  expected  to  produce  not  only  enough  for 
their  own  needs,  but  to  provide  a  super-production 
in  order  to  indemnify  the  winners  for  all  the  losses 
and  damages  sustained  on  account  of  the  war.    The 


EUKOPE  WITHOUT  PEACE      19 

victors,  bound  together  in  what  is  supposed  to  be  a 
permanent  alliance  for  the  protection  of  their  com- 
mon interests,  are  to  exercise  military  force  as  a 
means  of  oppression  and  control  over  the  losers 
until  the  full  payment  of  the  indemnity.  Another 
part  of  Europe  is  in  a  state  of  revolutionary  fer- 
ment, and  the  Entente  Powers  have,  by  their  atti- 
tude, rather  tended  to  aggravate  than  to  improve  the 
situation. 

Europe  can  recover  peace  only  by  remembering 
that  the  war  is  over.  Unfortunately,  the  system 
created  by  the  treaties  not  only  prevents  us  from 
remembering  that  the  war  is  ended,  but  determines 
a  state  of  permanent  war. 

Clemenceau  bluntly  declared  to  the  French 
Chamber  that  treaties  were  a  means  of  continuing 
the  war.  He  was  perfectly  right,  for  war  is  being 
waged  more  bitterly  than  ever,  and  peace  is  more 
remote. 

The  problem  with  which  modern  statesmen  are 
confronted  is  very  simple:  can  Europe  continue  in 
her  decline  without  involving  the  ruin  of  civiliza- 
tion! And  is  it  possible  to  stop  this  process  of  decay 
without  finding  some  form  of  civil  symbiosis  which 
will  insure  for  all  men  a  more  human  mode  of  living  ? 
In  the  affirmative  case  what  action  can  we  take? 
Furthermore  will  it  be  possible  to  carry  out  such 
action,  given  the  national  and  economic  interests 
now  openly  and  bitterly  in  conflict? 

We  have  before  us  a  problem,  or  rather  a  series 
of  problems,  which  call  for  impartiality  and  calm  if 


20  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

a  satisfactory  solution  is  to  be  arrived  at.  Perhaps 
if  some  fundamental  truths  were  brought  home  to 
the  people,  or,  to  be  more  exact,  to  the  peoples  now 
at  loggerheads  with  one  another,  a  notion  of  the 
peril  equally  impending  upon  all  concerned  and  the 
conviction  that  an  indefinite  prolongation  of  the 
present  state  of  things  is  impossible,  would  prove 
decisive  factors  in  restoring  a  spirit  of  peace  and  in 
reviving  that  spirit  of  solidarity  which  now  appears 
spent  or  slumbering. 

But  in  the  first  place  it  is  necessary  to  review  the 
situation,  such  as  it  is  at  the  present  moment : 

1.  Europe,  which  was  the  creditor  of  all  other 
continents,  has  now  become  their  debtor. 

2.  Her  working  capacity  has  greatly  decreased, 
chiefly  owing  to  a  change  for  the  worse  in  her  vital 
statistics.  In  pre-war  times  the  ancient  continent 
supplied  new  continents  and  new  territories  with  a 
hardy  race  of  pioneers,  and  held  the  record  as  re- 
gards population,  both  adult  and  infantile,  the  pre- 
valence of  women  over  men  being  especially  noted 
by  statisticians.  All  this  has  changed  considerably 
for  the  worse ! 

3.  On  the  losing  nations,  including  Germany, 
which  is  generally  understood  to  be  the  most  cul- 
tured nation  in  the  world,  the  victors  have  forced  a 
peace  which  practically  amounts  to  a  continuation  of 
the  war.  The  vanquished  have  had  to  give  up  their 
colonies,  their  shipping,  their  credits  abroad,  and 
their  transferable  resources,  besides  agreeing  to  the 
military  and  economic  control  of  the  Allies;  more- 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE      21 

over,  despite  their  desperate  conditions,  they  are 
expected  to  pay  an  indemnity,  the  amount  of  which, 
although  hitherto  only  vaguely  mentioned,  surpasses 
by  its  very  absurdity  all  possibility  of  an  even  re- 
mote settlement. 

4.  Considerable  groups  of  ex-enemy  peoples, 
chiefly  Germans  and  Magyars,  have  been  assigned 
to  populations  of  an  inferior  civilization. 

5.  As  a  result  of  this  state  of  things,  while  Ger- 
many, Austria  and  Bulgaria  have  practically  no 
army  at  all  and  have  submitted  without  the  slight- 
est resistance  to  the  most  stringent  forms  of  mili- 
tary control,  the  victorious  states  have  increased 
their  armies  and  fleets  to  proportions  which  they 
did  not  possess  before  the  war. 

6.  Europe,  cut  up  into  more  than  thirty  states, 
daily  sees  her  buying  capacity  decreasing  and  the 
rate  of  exchange  rising  against  her. 

7.  The  peace  treaties  are  the  most  barefaced 
denial  of  all  the  principles  which  the  Entente 
Powers  declared  and  proclaimed  during  the  war; 
not  only  so,  but  they  are  a  fundamental  negation  of 
President  Wilson's  fourteen  points  which  consti- 
tuted a  solemn  obligation,  not  only  with  the  enemy, 
but  with  the  democracies  of  the  whole  world. 

8.  The  subsequent  moral  unrest  has  divided  the 
various  Entente  Powers,  the  United  States  of 
America,  Great  Britain,  France  and  Italy,  not  only 
in  their  aims,  but  in  their  sentiments.  The  United 
States  is  anxious  to  get  rid,  as  far  as  possible,  of 
European      complications      and      responsibilities; 


22  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

France  is  pursuing  aims  and  methods  with  which 
Great  Britain  and  Italy  are  not  wholly  in  sympathy, 
and  it  can  not  be  said  that  the  three  Great  Powers 
of  Western  Europe  are  in  perfect  harmony.  There 
is  still  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  common  ends  and 
ideals,  and  the  necessity  of  applying  the  treaties  in 
perfect  accord  and  harmony,  but  everybody  is  con- 
vinced that  to  enforce  the  treaties,  without  attenuat- 
ing or  modifying  their  terms,  would  mean  the  ruin 
of  Europe  and  the  collapse  of  the  victors  after  that 
of  the  vanquished. 

9.  A  keen  contest  of  nationalisms,  land-grabbing 
and  cornering  of  raw  materials  renders  friendly  re- 
lations between  the  thirty  weakened  states  of 
Europe  extremely  difficult.  The  most  characteristic 
examples  of  nationalist  violence  have  arisen  out  of 
the  war,  as  in  the  case  of  Poland  and  other  new- 
born states,  which  pursue  vain  dreams  of  empire 
while  on  the  verge  of  dissolution  through  sheer  lack 
of  vital  strength  and  energy,  and  become  every  day 
more  deeply  engulfed  in  misery  and  ruin. 

10.  Continental  Europe  is  on  the  eve  of  a  series 
of  fresh  and  more  violent  wars  among  peoples, 
threatening  to  submerge  civilization  unless  some 
means  be  found  to  replace  the  present  treaties,  which 
are  based  on  the  principle  that  it  is  necessary  to  con- 
tinue the  war,  by  a  system  of  friendly  agreements 
whereby  winners  and  losers  are  placed  on  a  footing 
of  liberty  and  equality,  and  which,  while  laying  on 
the  vanquished  a  weight  they  are  able  to  bear,  will 
liberate  Europe  from  the  present  spectacle  of  a  con- 


EUROPE  WITHOUT  PEACE      23 

tinent  divided  into  two  camps,  where  one  is  armed 
to  the  teeth  and  threatening,  while  the  other,  un- 
armed and  inoffensive,  is  forced  to  labor  in  slavish 
conditions  under  the  menace  of  a  servitude  even 
more  severe. 

11.  The  moral  level  of  Europe  is  daily  being 
lowered.  The  policies  pursued  toward  the  con- 
quered have  no  parallel  in  modern  history.  Along 
the  Rhine  some  of  the  most  progressive  cities  in  the 
world  have  been  placed  under  guard  of  black  troops 
of  inferior  race,  and  they  are  guilty  of  every  form 
of  violence,  which  they  commit  not  through  necessity 
but  with  the  desire  to  insult  and  outrage.  The  con- 
quered are  deprived  of  their  wealth  by  means  of  all 
kinds  of  parasitism  and  commissions  of  control 
which  in  reality  often  amount  to  spoliation,  and  the 
methods  employed  bring  back  to  mind  the  worst 
phases  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

12.  Europe,  far  from  preparing  vast  federations 
of  states,  is  being  parcelled  out  to  the  great  de- 
triment of  any  world  economy.  It  may  be  said  with- 
out departing  very  far  from  the  truth  that  although 
Europe  before  the  war  had  but  a  quarter  of  the 
population  of  the  earth,  as  a  result  of  its  develop- 
ment it  consumed  one-half  of  all  the  principal  pro- 
ducts of  exchange.  For  this  reason  the  crisis  has 
been  carried  over  into  other  continents  and  no  stabil- 
ity can  be  reestablished  except  through  the  restora- 
tion of  those  principles  of  democracy  and  justice 
which  have  been  too  rudely  violated  by  a  series  of 
peaces  more  unjust  than  war  itself. 


II 


THE    PEACE    TREATIES    AND    THE    CONTINUATION    OP 
THE  WAR 

The  various  peace  treaties  regulating  the  present 
territorial  situation  bear  the  names  of  the  localities 
near  Paris  in  which  they  were  signed:  Versailles, 
Saint-Germain-en-Laye,  Trianon  and  Sevres. 

The  first  deals  with  Germany,  the  second  with 
Austria,  the  third  with  Hungary,  and  the  fourth 
with  Turkey.  The  Treaty  of  Neuilly,  comparatively 
of  far  less  importance,  concerns  Bulgaria  alone. 
The  one  fundamental  and  decisive  treaty  is  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles,  inasmuch  as  it  not  only  estab- 
lishes as  a  recognized  fact  the  partition  of  Europe, 
but  lays  down  the  rules  according  to  which  all  future 
treaties  are  to  be  concluded. 

History  has  no  record  of  a  more  colossal  diplo- 
matic feat  than  this  treaty,  by  which  Europe  has 
been  neatly  divided  into  two  camps:  victors  and 
vanquished;  the  former  being  authorized  to  exer- 
cise over  the  latter  complete  control  until  the  ful- 
filment of  conditions  which  can  not  be  discharged 
until  after  thirty  years  from  the  time  of  their  having 
been  imposed.    Competent  judges  in  general  agree- 

24 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  25 

ment  hold  that  these  conditions  are  in  large  measure 
impossible. 

Although  it  is  a  matter  of  recent  history,  it  is 
well  to  call  to  mind  that  the  Entente  Powers  have 
always  maintained  that  the  war  was  willed  and  im- 
posed by  Germany;  that  she  alone,  with  her  allies, 
repeatedly  violated  the  rights  of  peoples;  that  the 
World  War  could  well  be  regarded  as  the  last  war, 
inasmuch  as  the  triumph  of  the  Entente  meant  the 
triumph  of  democracy  and  a  more  humane  regime 
of  life,  a  society  of  nations  rich  in  effects  conducive 
to  a  lasting  peace.  It  was  imperative  to  restore  the 
principles  of  international  justice.  In  France,  in 
England,  in  Italy,  and  later,  even  more  solemnly,  in 
the  United  States,  the  same  principles  were  pro- 
claimed by  heads  of  states,  by  parliaments  and  gov- 
ernments. 

There  are  two  documents  drawn  up  on  the  eve  of 
that  event  of  decisive  importance,  the  entry  of  the 
United  States  into  the  war,  which  lay  down  the 
principles  which  the  Entente  Powers  bound  them- 
selves to  sustain  and  to  carry  on  to  triumph.  The 
first  is  a  statement  by  Briand  to  the  United  States 
ambassador,  in  the  name  of  all  the  other  Allies, 
dated  December  30,  1916.  Briand  speaks  in  the 
name  of  all  "les  gouvemements  allies  urns  pour  la 
defense  et  la  liberte  des  peuples." 

Briand 's  second  declaration,  dated  January  10, 
1917,  is  even  more  fundamentally  important.  It  is 
a  joint  note  of  reply  to  President  Wilson,  delivered 
in  the  name  of  all  the  Allies  to  the  United  States 


26  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

ambassador.    The  principles  therein  established  are 

very  clearly  enunciated.  According  to  that  docu- 
ment the  Entente  has  no  idea  of  conquest  and  pro- 
poses mainly  to  achieve  the  following  objects: 

1st.  Restoration  of  Belgium,  Serbia  and  Montenegro, 
with  the  indemnities  due  to  them. 

2nd.  Evacuation  of  invaded  territories  in  France, 
Russia  and  Rumania  and  payment  of  just  reparations. 

3rd.  Reorganization  of  Europe  with  a  permanent 
regime  based  on  the  respect  of  nationalities  and  on  the 
right  of  all  countries,  both  great  and  small,  to  complete 
security  and  freedom  of  economic  development,  besides  ter- 
ritorial conventions  and  international  regulations  capable 
of  guaranteeing  land  and  sea  frontiers  from  unjustified 
attacks. 

4th.  Restitution  of  the  provinces  and  territories  taken 
in  the  past  from  the  Allies  by  force  and  against  the  wish 
of  the  inhabitants. 

5th.  Liberation  of  Italians,  Slavs,  Rumanians  and 
Czecho-Slovaks  from  foreign  rule. 

6th.  Liberation  of  the  peoples  subjected  to  the  tyranny 
of  the  Turks  and  expulsion  from  Europe  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire,  as  being  decidedly  foreign  to  "Western  civilization. 

7th.  The  intentions  of  His  Majesty  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  in  regard  to  Poland  are  clearly  indicated  in  the 
proclamation  addressed  to  his  armies. 

8th.  The  Allies  have  never  harbored  the  design  of 
exterminating  the  Germanic  peoples  nor  of  bringing  about 
their  political  disappearance. 

At  that  time  the  autocratic  form  of  government 
still  prevailed  in  Russia,  and  the  Allies  still  con- 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  27 

sidered  themselves  bound  to  Russia's  aspirations; 
moreover  there  existed,  in  regard  to  Italy,  the  obli- 
gations established  by  the  Pact  of  London.  That 
is  why  in  the  statements  of  the  Entente  Powers  of 
Europe  the  restoration  of  Montenegro  is  regarded 
as  an  obligation ;  mention  is  made  of  the  necessity  of 
driving  the  Turks  out  of  Europe  in  order  to  enable 
Russia  to  seize  Constantinople;  and  as  to  Poland, 
there  are  only  vague  allusions,  namely,  the  reference 
made  to  the  czar's  intentions  as  outlined  in  his 
proclamation. 

The  Entente  has  won  the  war,  but  Russia  has 
collapsed  under  the  strain.  Victory  without  the  fall 
of  Russia  would  have  been  a  misfortune  for  civiliza- 
tion, and  would  have  created  a  Russian  domination 
in  the  Mediterranean.  On  the  other  hand,  to  unite 
Dalmatia  to  Italy,  while  separating  her  from  Italy, 
according  to  the  Pact  of  London,  by  assigning  the 
territory  of  Fiume  to  Croatia,  would  have  meant 
setting  all  the  forces  of  Slav  irredentism  against 
Italy. 

These  considerations  are  of  no  practical  value 
inasmuch  as  events  have  taken  another  course. 
Nobody  can  say  what  would  have  happened  if  the 
Carthagenians  had  conquered  the  Romans  or  if  vic- 
tory had  remained  with  Mithridates.  Hypotheses 
are  of  but  slight  interest  when  truth  follows  another 
direction.  However  it  was  most  fortunate  for 
Europe  that  victory  was  not  decided  by  Russia,  but 
that  the  United  States  proved  a  decisive  factor  in- 
stead. 


28  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

It  is  beyond  all  possible  doubt  that  without  the 
intervention  <>f  the  United  States  of  America  the 
war  could  not  have  been  won  by  the  Entente. 
Although  the  admission  may  prove  humiliating  to 
the  European  point  of  view,  it  is  a  fact  that  can 
not  be  attenuated  or  disguised.  The  United  States 
threw  into  the  balance  the  weight  of  its  enormous 
economic  and  technical  resources,  besides  its  enor- 
mous resources  in  men.  Although  she  lost  but  fifty 
thousand  men,  the  United  States  built  up  such  a 
formidable  human  reserve  as  to  deprive  Germany 
of  all  hope  of  victory.  The  announcement  of  Ameri- 
ca 's  entry  into  the  Avar  immediately  crushed  all  Ger- 
many 's  power  of  resistance.  Germany  felt  that  the 
struggle  was  no  longer  limited  to  Europe,  and  that 
every  effort  was  vain. 

The  United  States,  besides  giving  to  the  war  enor- 
mous quantities  of  arms  and  money,  had  practically 
inexhaustible  reserves  of  men  to  place  in  the  field 
against  an  enemy  already  exhausted  and  famine- 
stricken. 

War  and  battles  are  two  very  different  things. 
Battles  constitute  an  essentially  military  fact,  while 
war  is  an  essentially  political  fact.  That  explains 
why  great  leaders  in  war  have  always  been  first  and 
foremost  great  political  leaders,  namely,  men  accus- 
tomed to  manage  other  men  and  able  to  utilize  them 
for  their  purposes.  Alexander,  Julius  Caesar, 
Napoleon,  the  three  greatest  military  leaders  pro- 
duced by  Aryan  civilization,  were  essentially  politi- 
cal men.    War  is  not  only  a  clash  of  arms,  it  is  above 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  29 

all  the  most  effective  exploitation  of  men,  of 
economic  resources  and  of  political  situations.  A 
battle  is  a  fact  of  a  purely  military  nature.  The 
Romans  almost  constantly  placed  at  the  head  of  their 
armies  personages  of  consular  rank,  who  regarded 
and  conducted  the  war  as  a  political  enterprise.  The 
rules  of  tactics  and  strategy  are  perfectly  useless  if 
those  who  conduct  the  war  fail  to  utilize  to  the  ut- 
most all  the  means  at  their  disposal. 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  in  the  war  Germany  and 
Austria-Hungary  scored  the  greatest  number  of 
battles.  For  a  long  period  they  succeeded  in  invad- 
ing large  tracts  of  enemy  territory  and  in  recover- 
ing those  parts  of  their  own  territory  that  had  been 
invaded,  besides  always  maintaining  the  offensive. 
They  won  great  battles  at  the  cost  of  enormous 
sacrifices  in  men  and  lives,  and  for  a  long  time 
they  could  believe  themselves  victorious.  But  they 
failed  to  understand  that  from  the  day  in  which  the 
violation  of  Belgium's  neutrality  determined  Great 
Britain's  entry  into  the  field,  the  war,  from  a  gen- 
eral point  of  view,  could  be  regarded  as  lost.  As  I 
have  said,  Germany  is  especially  lacking  in  political 
sense:  after  Bismarck,  her  statesmen  have  never 
risen  to  the  height  of  the  situation.  Even  Von 
Billow,  who  appeared  to  be  the  most  intelligent, 
never  once  showed  true  political  sagacity. 

The  " banal"  statements  made  about  Belgium  and 
the  United  States  of  America  by  the  men  who  di- 
rected Germany's  war  policy  were  precisely  the  sort 
of  thing  most  calculated  to  harm  the  people  from 


30  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

whom  they  came.  What  is  decidedly  lacking  in  Ger- 
many, while  it  abounds  in  France,  is  a  political  class. 
Now  a  political  class,  consisting  of  men  of  ability 
and  culture,  can  only  be  the  result  of  a  democratic 
education  in  all  modem  states,  especially  in  those 
which  have  achieved  a  high  standard  of  civilization 
and  development.  It  seems  almost  incredible  that 
Germany,  despite  all  her  culture,  should  have  toler- 
ated the  political  dictatorship  of  the  kaiser  and  of 
his  luckless  collaborators. 

At  the  Conferences  of  Paris  and  London,  in  1919 
and  1920,  I  did  all  that  was  in  my  power  to  prevent 
the  trial  of  the  kaiser,  and  I  am  convinced  that  my 
firm  attitude  in  the  matter  succeeded  in  avoiding  it. 
Sound  common  sense  saved  us  from  floundering  in 
one  of  the  most  formidable  blunders  of  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles.  To  hold  one  man  responsible  for  the 
whole  war  and  to  bring  him  to  trial,  his  enemies 
acting  as  judge  and  jury,  would  have  been  such  a 
monstrous  travesty  of  justice  as  to  provoke  a  moral 
revolt  throughout  the  world.  On  the  other  hand 
there  was  also  another  moral  monstrosity,  which 
deprived  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  of  every  shred  of 
dignity.  If  the  one  responsible  for  the  war  is  the 
kaiser,  why  does  the  Entente  demand  of  the  German 
people  such  enormous  indemnities,  unprecedented  in 
history? 

One  of  the  men  who  has  exercised  the  greatest 
influence  on  European  events  during  the  last  ten 
years,  one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  influential  of 
living  statesmen,  once  told  me  it  was  his  opinion  that 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  31 

the  kaiser  did  not  want  the  war,  but  neither  did  he 
wish  to  prevent  it. 

Germany,  although  under  protest,  has  been  forced 
to  accept  the  statement  of  the  Versailles  Treaty  to 
the  effect  that  she  is  responsible  for  the  war  and 
that  she  provoked  it.  The  same  charge  has  been 
leveled  at  her  in  all  the  Entente  States  during  the 
conflict. 

When  our  countries  were  engaged  in  the  struggle, 
and  we  were  at  grips  with  a  dangerous  enemy,  it  was 
our  duty  to  keep  up  the  morale  of  our  people  and  to 
paint  our  adversaries  in  the  darkest  colors,  laying 
on  their  shoulders  all  the  blame  and  responsibility. 
But  after  such  a  war,  now  that  imperial  Germany 
has  fallen,  it  is  absurd  to  maintain  that  the  respon- 
sibility belongs  to  Germany  alone,  and  that  in  pre- 
war Europe  there  had  not  been  created  before  1914 
conditions  that  were  bound  to  lead  to  war.  If  Ger- 
many has  the  greatest  responsibility,  that  responsi- 
bility is  shared  more  or  less  by  all  the  countries  of 
the  Entente.  But  while  the  Entente  countries,  in 
spite  of  their  mistakes,  had  the  political  sense  always 
to  invoke  principles  of  right  and  justice,  the  states- 
men of  Germany  gave  utterance  to  nothing  but  bru- 
tal and  vulgar  statements,  culminating  in  the  de- 
plorable mental  and  moral  expressions  contained  in 
the  speeches,  messages  and  telegrams  of  William  II. 
He  was  a  perfect  type  of  the  miles  gloriosus,  not  a 
harmless  but  an  irritating  and  dangerous  boaster, 
who  succeeded  in  piling  up  more  loathing  and  hatred 
against  his  country  than  the  most  active  and  intelli- 


32  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

gently  managed  enemy  propaganda  could  possibly 
have  done. 

If  the  issue  of  the  war  could  be  regarded  as 
seriously  jeopardized  by  England's  intervention,  it 
was  practically  lost  for  the  Central  Empires  when 
the  United  States  stepped  in. 

America's  decision  definitely  crippled  Germany's 
resistance — and  not  only  for  military,  but  for  moral 
reasons.  In  all  his  messages  President  "Wilson  had 
repeatedly  declared  that  he  wanted  a  peace  based  on 
justice  and  equity,  of  which  he  outlined  the  funda- 
mental conditions ;  moreover,  he  stated  that  he  had 
no  quarrel  with  the  German  people,  but  with  the  men 
who  were  at  their  head,  and  that  he  did  not  wish  to 
impose  on  the  vanquished,  oppressive  terms  of  peace. 

President  Wilson's  ideas  on  the  subject  have  been 
embodied  in  a  bulky  volume.*  Turning  over  the 
pages  of  this  book  now  we  have  the  impression  that 
it  is  a  collection  of  literary  essays  by  a  man  who 
had  his  eye  on  posterity  and  assumed  a  pose  most 
likely  to  attract  the  admiration  of  generations  yet 
unborn.  But  when  these  same  words  were  uttered 
in  the  intervals  of  mighty  battles,  they  fell  on  ex- 
pectant and  anxious  ears;  they  were  regarded  as  a 
ray  of  light  in  the  fearsome  darkness  of  uncertainty, 
and  everybody  listened  to  them,  not  only  because  the 
president  was  the  authorized  exponent  of  a  great 
nation,  of  a  powerful  people,  but  because  he  repre- 
sented an  inexhaustible  source  of  vitality  in  the 
midst  of  the  ravages  of  violence  and  death.    Presi- 


*President  Wilson's  State  Papers  and  Addresses,  New  York,  1918. 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  33 

dent  Wilson's  messages  have  done  as  much  as 
famine  and  cruel  losses  in  the  field  to  break  the 
resistance  of  the  German  people.  If  it  was  possible 
to  obtain  a  just  peace,  why  go  to  the  bitter  end 
when  defeat  was  manifestly  inevitable?  Obstinacy 
is  the  backbone  of  war,  and  nothing  undermines  a 
nation's  power  of  resistance  so  much  as  doubt  and 
faint-heartedness  on  the  part  of  the  governing 
classes. 

President  Wilson,  who  said  on  January  2,  1917, 
that  a  peace  without  victory  was  to  be  preferred 
("It  must  be  a  peace  without  victory"),  and  that 
"Right  is  more  precious  than  peace,"  had  also  re- 
peatedly affirmed  that  "We  have  no  quarrel  with 
the  German  people." 

He  only  desired,  as  the  exponent  of  a  great  de- 
mocracy, a  peace  which  should  be  the  expression  of 
right  and  justice,  evolving  from  the  war  a  League  of 
Nations,  the  first  mile-stone  in  a  new  era  of  civiliza- 
tion, a  league  destined  to  bind  together  ex-belliger- 
ents and  neutrals  in  one. 

In  Germany,  where  the  inhabitants  had  to  bear 
the  most  cruel  privations,  President  Wilson's  words, 
pronounced  as  a  solemn  pledge  before  the  whole 
world,  had  a  most  powerful  effect  on  all  classes  and 
greatly  contributed  toward  the  final  breakdown  of 
collective  resistance.  Democratic  minds  saw  a 
promise  for  the  future,  while  reactionaries  welcomed 
any  way  out  of  their  disastrous  adventure. 

After  America's  entry  in  the  war,  President  Wil- 
son, on  January  8,  1918,  formulated  the  fourteen 


34  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

points  of  his  program  regarding  the  aims  of  the  war 
and  the  peace  to  be  realized. 

It  is  here  necessary  to  reproduce  the  original  text 
of  President  Wilson's  message  containing  the  four- 
teen points  which  constitute  a  formal  pledge  under- 
taken by  the  democracy  of  America,  not  only  toward 
enemy  peoples  but  toward  all  peoples  of  the  world. 

These  important  statements  from  President  Wil- 
son's message  have,  strangely  enough,  been  repro- 
duced either  incompletely  or  in  an  utterly  mistaken 
form  even  in  official  documents  and  in  books  pub- 
lished by  statesmen  who  took  a  leading  part  in  the 
Paris  Conference. 

It  is  therefore  advisable  to  reproduce  the  original 
text  in  full : 

"1st.  Honest  peace  treaties,  following  loyal  and  honest 
negotiations,  after  which  secret  international  agreements 
will  be  abolished  and  diplomacy  will  always  proceed 
frankly  and  openly. 

"2nd.  Full  liberty  of  navigation  on  the  high  seas  out- 
side territorial  waters,  both  in  peace  and  war,  except  when 
the  seas  be  closed  wholly  or  in  part  by  an  international 
decision  sanctioned  by  international  treaties. 

"3rd.  Removal,  as  far  as  possible,  of  all  economic 
barriers  and  establishment  of  terms  of  equality  in  com- 
merce among  all  nations  adhering  to  peace  and  associated 
to  maintain  it. 

1 '  4th.  Appropriate  guarantees  to  be  given  and  received 
for  the  reduction  of  national  armaments  to  a  minimum 
compatible  with  internal  safety. 

' '  5th.     A  clear,  open  and  absolutely  impartial  settlement 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  35 

of  all  colonial  rights,  based  on  a  rigorous  observance  of 
the  principle  that,  in  the  determination  of  all  questions 
of  sovereignty,  the  interests  of  the  populations  shall  bear 
equal  weight  with  those  of  the  government  whose  claims 
are  to  be  determined. 

"6th.  The  evacuation  of  all  Russian  territories  and  a 
settlement  of  all  Russian  questions  such  as  to  insure  the 
best  and  most  untrammeled  cooperation  of  other  nations 
of  the  world  in  order  to  afford  Russia  a  clear  and  precise 
opportunity  for  the  independent  settlement  of  her 
autonomous  political  development  and  for  her  national 
policy,  promising  her  a  cordial  welcome  in  the  League  of 
Nations  under  institutions  of  her  own  choice,  and  besides 
a  cordial  welcome,  help  and  assistance  in  all  that  she  may 
need  and  require.  The  treatment  meted  out  to  Russia  by 
the  sister  nations  in  the  months  to  come  must  be  a  decisive 
proof  of  their  good  will,  of  their  understanding  of  her 
needs  as  apart  from  their  own  interests,  and  of  their  intel- 
ligent and  disinterested  sympathy. 

"7th.  Belgium,  as  the  whole  world  will  agree,  must  be 
evacuated  and  reconstructed  without  the  slightest  attempt 
at  curtailing  the  sovereign  rights  which  she  enjoys  in 
common  with  other  free  nations.  Nothing  will  be  more 
conducive  to  the  reestablishment  of  confidence  and  respect 
among  nations  for  those  laws  which  they  themselves  have 
made  for  the  regulation  and  observance  of  their  reciprocal 
relations.  Without  this  salutary  measure  the  whole  struc- 
ture and  validity  of  international  law  would  be  perma- 
nently undermined. 

"8th.  All  French  territories  will  be  liberated,  the  in- 
vaded regions  reconstructed,  and  the  wrong  done  to 
France  by  Prussia  in  1871,  in  the  question  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  and  which  has  jeopardized  the  peace  of  the 


36  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

world  for  nearly  half  a  century,  must  be  made  good,  so 
as  to  insure  a  Lasting  peace  in  the  general  interest. 

"9th.  The  Italian  frontier  mnsl  be  rectified  on  the  basis 
of  the  clearly  recognized  lines  of  nationality. 

"10th.  The  people  of  Austria-Hungary,  whose  place 
among  the  nations  we  wish  to  see  safeguarded  and  main- 
tained, should  come  to  an  agreement  as  to  the  best  way 
of  attaining  their  autonomous  development. 

"11th.  Rumania,  Serbia  and  Montenegro  are  to  be 
evacuated  and  occupied  territories  restored:  a  free  and 
secure  access  to  the  sea  for  Serbia;  mutual  relations  be- 
tween the  Balkan  States  to  be  determined  on  a  friendly 
basis  by  a  Council,  following  the  lines  of  friendship  and 
nationality  traced  by  tradition  and  history;  the  political 
and  economic  integrity  of  the  various  Balkan  States  to 
be  guaranteed. 

"12th.  A  certain  degree  of  sovereignty  must  be  assigned 
to  that  part  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  which  is  Turkish ;  but 
the  other  nationalities  now  under  the  Turkish  regime 
should  have  the  assurance  of  an  independent  existence  and 
of  an  absolute  and  undisturbed  opportunity  to  develop 
their  autonomy;  moreover  the  Dardanelles  should  be  per- 
manently open  to  the  shipping  and  commerce  of  all  nations 
under  international  guarantees. 

"13th.  An  independent  Polish  State  should  be  founded, 
comprising  all  territories  inhabited  by  peoples  of  un- 
doubtedly Polish  nationality,  with  a  free  and  secure  access 
to  the  sea  and  its  political  and  economic  independence  and 
territorial  integrity  guaranteed  by  international  agree- 
ments. 

"14th.  A  League  of  Nations  must  be  formed  with  spe- 
cial pacts  and  for  the  sole  scope  of  insuring  the  reciprocal 
guarantees  of  political  independence  and  of  territorial  in- 
tegrity, in  equal  measure  both  for  large  and  small  states/ ' 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  37 

The  Peace  Treaty  as  outlined  by  Wilson  would 
really  have  brought  about  a  just  peace ;  but  we  shall 
see  how  the  actual  result  proved  quite  the  reverse  of 
what  constituted  a  solemn  pledge  of  the  American 
people  and  of  the  Entente  Powers. 

On  February  11,  1918,  President  Wilson  con- 
firmed before  Congress  that  all  territorial  readjust- 
ments were  to  be  made  in  the  interest  and  for  the 
advantage  of  the  populations  concerned,  not  merely 
as  a  bargain  between  rival  states,  and  that  there 
were  not  to  be  indemnities,  annexations  or  punitive 
exactions  of  any  kind. 

On  September  27,  1918,  just  on  the  eve  of  the 
armistice,  when  German  resistance  was  already 
shaken  almost  to  the  breaking  point,  President  Wil- 
son gave  it  the  coup  de  grace  by  his  message  on  the 
post-bellum  economic  settlement.  No  special  or  sep- 
arate interest  of  any  single  nation  or  group  of  na- 
tions was  to  be  taken  as  the  basis  of  any  settlement 
which  did  not  concern  the  common  interest  of  all; 
there  were  not  to  be  any  leagues  or  alliances,  or  spe- 
cial pacts  or  ententes  within  the  great  family  of  the 
society  of  nations ;  economic  deals  and  corners  of  an 
egotistical  nature  were  to  be  forbidden,  as  also  all 
forms  of  boycotting,  with  the  exception  of  those 
applied  in  punishment  to  the  countries  transgress- 
ing the  rules  of  good  fellowship;  all  international 
treaties  and  agreements  of  every  kind  were  to  be 
published  in  their  entirety  to  the  whole  world. 

It  was  a  magnificent  program  of  world  policy. 
Not  only  would  it  have  meant  peace  after  war,  but 


38  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

a  peace  calculated  to  heal  the  deep  wounds  of 
Europe  and  to  renovate  the  economic  status  of 
nations. 

On  the  basis  of  these  principles,  which  constituted 
a  solemn  pledge,  Germany,  worn  out  by  famine  and 
even  more  by  increasing  internal  unrest,  demanded 
peace. 

According  to  President  Wilson's  clear  statements, 
made  not  only  in  the  name  of  the  United  States  but 
in  that  of  the  whole  Entente,  peace  therefore  was  to 
be  based  on  justice;  the  relations  between  winners 
and  losers  in  a  society  of  nations  were  to  be  inspired 
by  mutual  trust. 

There  were  no  longer  to  be  huge  standing  armies, 
neither  on  the  part  of  the  ex-Central  Empires  nor  on 
that  of  the  victorious  states;  adequate  guarantees 
were  to  be  given  and  received  for  the  reduction  of 
armies  to  the  minimum  necessary  for  internal  de- 
fense; removal  of  all  economic  barriers;  absolute 
freedom  of  the  seas;  reorganization  of  the  colonies 
based  on  the  development  of  the  peoples  directly 
concerned ;  abolition  of  secret  diplomacy,  etc. 

As  to  the  duties  of  the  vanquished,  besides 
evacuating  the  occupied  territories,  they  were  to 
reconstruct  Belgium,  to  restore  to  France  the  terri- 
tories taken  in  1871;  to  restore  all  the  territories 
belonging  to  Rumania,  Serbia  and  Montenegro,  giv- 
ing Serbia  a  free  and  secure  access  to  the  sea;  to 
constitute  a  free  Poland  with  territories  undoubtedly 
Polish  to  which  there  might  be  granted  free  and 
secure  access  to  the  sea.    Poland,  founded  on  secure 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  39 

ethnical  bases,  far  from  being  a  military  state,  was 
to  be  an  element  of  peace,  and  her  political  and 
economic  independence  and  territorial  integrity 
were  to  have  been  guaranteed  by  an  international 
agreement. 

After  the  rectification  of  the  Italian  frontier  ac- 
cording to  the  principles  of  nationality,  the  peoples 
of  Austria-Hungary  were  to  agree  on  the  free  oppor- 
tunity of  their  autonomous  development.  In  other 
terms,  each  people  could  freely  choose  autonomy  or 
throw  in  its  lot  with  some  other  state.  After  giving 
a  certain  sovereignty  to  the  Turkish  populations  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire  the  other  nationalities  were  to 
be  allowed  to  develop  autonomously,  and  the  free 
navigation  of  the  Dardanelles  was  to  be  internation- 
ally guaranteed. 

These  principles  announced  by  President  Wilson, 
and  already  proclaimed  in  part  by  the  Entente 
Powers  when  they  stoutly  affirmed  that  they  were 
fighting  for  right,  for  democracy  and  for  peace,  did 
not  constitute  a  concession  but  an  obligation  toward 
the  enemy.  In  each  of  the  losing  countries,  in  Ger- 
many as  in  Austria-Hungary,  the  democratic  groups 
opposed  to  the  war,  and  those  even  more  numerous 
which  had  accepted  it  at  the  beginning  as  in 
a  moment  of  intoxication,  when  they  exerted  them- 
selves for  the  triumph  of  peace,  had  comited  on  the 
statements,  or  rather  on  the  solemn  promises  which 
American  democracy  had  made  not  only  in  the  name 
of  the  United  States  but  in  that  of  all  the  Entente 
Powers. 


40  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Let  us  now  try  to  sum  up  the  terms  imposed  on 
Germany  and  the  other  losing  countries  by  the 
treaty  of  June  28,  1919.  The  treaty,  it  is  true,  was 
concluded  between  the  Allied  and  Associated  coun- 
tries and  Germany,  but  it  also  concerns  the  very 
existence  of  other  countries  such  as  Austria-Hun- 
gary, Russia,  etc. : 

I.— TERRITORIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CLAUSES 

Until  the  payment  of  an  indemnity  the  amount  of  which 
is  as  yet  not  definitely  stated,  Germany  loses  the  funda- 
mental characters  of  a  sovereign  state.  Not  only  part  of 
her  territory  remains  under  the  occupation  of  the  ex-enemy 
troops  for  a  period  of  fifteen  years  but  a  whole  series  of 
controls  is  established,  military,  administrative,  on  trans- 
ports, etc.  The  Commission  for  Reparations  is  empowered 
to  effect  all  the  changes  it  thinks  fit  in  the  laws  and  regu- 
lations of  the  German  State,  besides  applying  sanctions  of 
a  military  and  economic  nature  in  the  event  of  violations  of 
the  clauses  placed  under  its  control  (Art.  240,  241). 

The  Allied  and  Associated  Governments  declare  and 
Germany  recognizes  that  Germany  and  her  allies  are  re- 
sponsible, being  the  direct  cause  thereof,  for  all  the  losses 
and  damages  suffered  by  the  Allied  and  Associated  Govern- 
ments and  their  subjects  as  a  result  of  the  war,  which  was 
thrust  upon  them  by  the  aggression  of  Germany  and  her 
allies  (Art.  231).  Consequently  the  resources  of  Germany 
(and  by  the  other  treaties  those  of  her  allies  as  well)  are 
destined,  even  if  insufficient,  to  insure  full  reparation  for 
all  losses  and  damages  (Art.  232). 

The  Allied  and  Associated  Powers  place  in  a  state  of 
public  accusation  William  II  of  Hohenzollern,  ex-German 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  41 

Emperor,  charging  him  with  the  gravest  offenses  against 
international  morality  and  the  sanctity  of  treaties.  A 
special  tribunal  composed  of  representatives  of  the  five 
great  Entente  Powers  shall  try  him  and  will  have  the  right 
of  determining  his  punishment  (Art.  227).  The  German 
Government  likewise  recognizes  the  right  of  the  Allied  and 
Associated  Powers  to  try  in  their  courts  of  justice  the  per- 
sons (and  more  especially  the  officers)  accused  of  having 
committed  acts  contrary  to  the  rules  and  customs  of  war. 

Kestitution  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  to  France  without 
any  obligation  on  the  latter 's  part,  not  even  the  correspond- 
ing quota  of  public  debt  (Art.  51  et  seq.). 

The  treaties  of  April  19,  1839,  are  abolished,  so  that  Bel- 
gium, being  no  longer  neutral,  may  become  allied  to  France 
(Art.  31)  ;  attribution  to  Belgium  of  the  territories  of 
Eupen,  Malmedy  and  Moresnet. 

Abolition  of  all  the  treaties  which  established  political 
and  economic  bonds  between  Germany  and  Luxemburg 
(Art.  40). 

Annulment  of  all  the  treaties  concluded  by  Germany 
during  the  war. 

German- Austria,  reduced  to  a  little  state  of  hardly  more 
than  6,500,000  inhabitants,  about  one-third  of  whom  live 
in  the  capital  (Art.  80),  can  not  become  united  to  Germany 
without  the  consent  of  the  Society  of  Nations,  and  is  not 
allowed  to  participate  in  the  affairs  of  another  nation, 
namely  of  Germany,  before  being  admitted  to  the  League 
of  Nations  (Treaty  of  Saint-Germain-en-Laye,  Art.  88). 
As  the  consent  of  the  League  of  Nations  must  be  unanimous, 
a  contrary  vote  on  the  part  of  France  would  be  sufficient 
to  prevent  German-Austria  from  becoming  united  to  Ger- 
many. 

Attribution  of  North  Schleswig  to  Denmark  (Art.  109). 


42  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Creation  of  the  Czecho-Slovak  State  (Art.  87),  which 
comprises  the  autonomous  territory  of  the  Ruthenians 
south  of  the  Carpathians,  Germany  abandoning  in  favor  of 
the  new  state  all  her  rights  and  claims  on  that  part  of 
Silesia  mentioned  in  Art.  83. 

Creation  of  the  State  of  Poland  (Art.  87),  to  whom 
Posnania  and  part  of  Western  Prussia  are  made  over. 
Upper  Silesia  is  to  decide  by  a  plebiscite  (Art.  88)  whether 
it  desires  to  be  united  to  Germany  or  to  Poland.  The  latter, 
even  without  Upper  Silesia,  becomes  a  state  of  31,000,000 
inhabitants,  with  about  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  population 
non-Polish,  including  very  numerous  groups  of  Germans. 

Creation  of  the  Free  State  of  Danzig  within  the  limits  of 
Art.  100,  under  the  protection  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
The  city  is  a  Free  City,  but  enclosed  within  the  Polish 
Customs  House  frontiers,  and  Poland  has  full  control  of 
the  river  and  of  the  railway  system.  Poland,  moreover, 
has  charge  of  the  foreign  affairs  of  the  Free  City  of  Dan- 
zig and  undertakes  to  protect  its  subjects  abroad. 

Surrender  to  the  victors,  or,  to  be  more  precise,  almost 
exclusively  to  Great  Britain  and  France,  of  all  the  German 
colonies  (Art.  119  and  127).  The  formula  (Art.  119)  is 
that  Germany  renounces  in  favor  of  the  leading  Allied  and 
Associated  Powers  all  her  territories  beyond  the  seas. 
Great  Britain  has  secured  an  important  share,  but  so  has 
France,  receiving  that  part  of  Congo  ceded  in  1911,  four- 
fifths  of  the  Cameroons  and  of  Togoland. 

Abandonment  of  all  rights  and  claims  in  China,  Siam, 
Liberia,  Morocco,  Egypt,  Turkey,  Bulgaria  and  Shantung 
(Art.  128  and  158). 

Creation  of  a  League  of  Nations  to  the  exclusion,  prac- 
tically, of  Germany  and  of  the  other  losing  countries,  with 
the  result  that  the  League  is  nothing  but  a  juridical  com- 


THE  PEACE  TEEATIES  43 

pletion  of  the  Commission  of  Reparations.  In  all  of  the 
various  treaties,  the  pact  of  the  League  of  Nations,  the 
Covenant,  left  standing  among  the  collapse  of  President 
Wilson's  other  ideas  and  proposals,  is  given  precedence 
over  all  other  clauses. 

II.— MILITARY  CLAUSES  AND  GUARANTEES 

Germany  is  obliged,  and  with  her,  by  the  subsequent 
treaties,  all  the  other  losing  countries,  to  surrender  her 
arms  and  to  reduce  her  troops  to  the  minimum  necessary 
for  internal  defense  (Art.  159  and  213).  The  German 
Army  has  no  General  Staff;  its  soldiers  are  mercenaries 
who  enlist  for  a  period  of  ten  years ;  it  can  not  be  composed 
of  more  than  seven  infantry  and  three  cavalry  divisions, 
not  exceeding  100,000  men  including  officers:  no  staff,  no 
military  aviation,  no  heavy  artillery.  The  number  of 
gendarmes  and  of  local  police  can  only  be  increased  pro- 
portionately with  the  increase  of  the  population.  The 
maximum  of  artillery  allowed  is  limited  to  the  require- 
ments of  internal  defense.  Germany  is  strictly  forbidden 
to  import  arms,  ammunition  and  war  material  of  any  kind 
or  description.  Conscription  is  abolished,  and  officers 
must  remain  with  the  colors  at  least  till  they  have  attained 
the  age  of  forty-five.  No  institute  of  science  or  culture  is 
allowed  to  take  an  interest  in  military  questions.  All 
fortifications  included  in  a  line  traced  fifty  kilometers  to 
the  east  of  the  Rhine  are  to  be  destroyed,  and  on  no  account 
may  German  troops  cross  the  said  line. 

Destruction  of  Heligoland  and  of  the  fortresses  of  the 
Kiel  Canal. 

Destruction  under  the  supervision  of  the  allied  commis- 
sions of  control  of  all  tanks,  flying  apparatus,  heavy  and 


44  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

field  artillery,  namely  35,000  guns,  160,000  machine  guns, 
2,700,000  rifles,  besides  the  tools  and  machinery  necessary 
for  their  manufacture.  Destruction  of  all  arsenals. 
Destruction  of  the  German  fleet,  which  must  be  limited  to 
the  proportions  mentioned  in  Art.  181. 

Creation  of  inter-allied  military  commissions  of  control 
to  supervise  and  enforce  the  carrying  out  of  the  military 
and  naval  clauses,  at  the  expense  of  Germany  and  with 
the  right  to  install  themselves  in  the  seat  of  the  central 
government. 

Occupation  as  a  guarantee,  for  a  period  of  fifteen  years 
after  the  application  of  the  treaty,  of  the  bridgeheads  and 
of  the  territories  now  occupied  west  of  the  Rhine  (Art. 
428  and  432).  If,  however,  the  Commission  of  Reparations 
finds  that  Germany  refuses  wholly  or  in  part  to  fulfil  her 
treaty  obligations,  the  zones  specified  in  Article  421  will  be 
immediately  occupied  by  the  troops  of  the  Allied  and  As- 
sociated Powers. 

III.— FINANCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  CLAUSES 

The  principle  being  recognized  that  Germany  alone  is 
responsible  for  the  war  which  she  willed  and  which  she 
imposed  on  the  rest  of  the  world,  Germany  is  bound  to  give 
complete  and  full  reparation  within  the  limits  specified 
by  Art.  232.  The  amount  of  the  damages  for  which 
reparation  is  due  will  be  fixed  by  the  Commission  of 
Reparations,  consisting  of  the  representatives  of  the  win- 
ning countries. 

The  coal  fields  of  the  Saar  Basin  are  to  be  handed  over, 
in  entire  and  absolute  ownership,  free  of  all  liens  and  obli- 
gations, to  France,  in  compensation  for  the  destruction  of 
the  coal  mines  in  the  north  of  France.    Before  the  war,  in 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  45 

1913,  the  output  of  the  Saar  amounted  to  17,000,000  tons. 
The  Saar  is  incorporated  in  the  French  douane  system  and 
after  fifteen  years  will  be  submitted  to  a  plebiscite. 

Germany  may  not  charge  heavier  duties  on  imports  from 
Allied  countries  than  on  those  from  any  other  country. 
This  treatment  of  the  most  favored  nation  to  be  extended 
to  all  Allied  and  Associated  States  does  not  imply  the  obli- 
gation of  reciprocity  (Art.  264).  A  similar  limitation  is 
placed  on  exports,  on  which  no  special  duty  may  be  levied. 

Exports  from  Alsace  and  Lorraine  into  Germany  to  be 
exempt  from  duty  for  a  period  of  five  years,  without  right 
of  reciprocity  (Art.  268). 

Germany  delivers  to  the  Allies  all  the  steamers  of  her 
mercantile  fleet  of  over  1,600  tons,  half  of  those  between 
1,000  and  1,600  tons,  and  one-fourth  of  her  fishing  vessels. 
Moreover,  she  binds  herself  to  build  at  the  request  of  the 
Allies  every  year,  and  for  a  period  of  five  years,  200,000 
tons  of  shipping,  as  directed  by  the  Allies,  and  the  value 
of  the  new.  constructions  will  be  credited  to  her  by  the  Com- 
mission of  Reparations  (Part  vm,  3). 

Besides  giving  up  all  her  colonies,  Germany  surrenders 
all  her  rights  and  claims  on  her  possessions  beyond  the 
seas  (Art.  119),  and  all  the  contracts  and  conventions  in 
favor  of  German  subjects  for  the  construction  and  ex- 
ploiting of  public  works,  which  will  be  considered  as  part 
payment  of  the  reparations  due.  The  private  property  of 
Germans  in  the  colonies,  as  also  the  right  of  Germans  to 
live  and  work  there,  come  under  the  free  jurisdiction  of 
the  victorious  states  occupying  the  colonies,  and  which 
reserve  unto  themselves  the  right  to  confiscate  and  liqui- 
date all  property  and  claims  belonging  to  Germans  (Art. 
121  and  297). 

The  private   property  of   German  citizens  residing  in 


46  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Alsace-Lorraine  is  subject  to  the  same  treatment  as  that  of 
residents  in  the  ex-German  colonies.  The  French  Govern- 
ment may  confiscate  without  granting  any  compensation 
the  private  property  of  Germans  and  of  German  concerns 
in  Alsace-Lorraine,  and  the  sums  thus  derived  will  be 
credited  toward  the  partial  settlement  of  eventual  French 
claims  (Art.  53  and  74).  The  property  of  the  state  and  of 
local  bodies  is  likewise  surrendered  without  any  compensa- 
tion whatever.  The  Allies  and  Associates  reserve  the  right 
to  seize  and  liquidate  all  property,  claims  and  interests 
belonging,  at  the  date  of  the  ratification  of  the  treaty,  to 
German  citizens  or  to  firms  controlled  by  them,  situated  in 
their  territories,  colonies,  possessions  and  protectorates,  in- 
cluding the  territories  surrendered  in  accordance  with  the 
clauses  of  the  treaty  (Art.  217). 

Germany  loses  everything  with  the  exception  of  her  ter- 
ritory: colonies,  possessions,  rights,  commercial  invest- 
ments, etc. 

After  giving  the  Saar  coal  fields  in  perpetual  ownership 
to  France  in  reparation  of  the  temporary  damages  suffered 
by  the  French  coal  mines,  the  treaty  goes  on  to  establish  the 
best  ways  and  means  to  deprive  Germany,  in  the  largest 
measure  possible,  of  her  coal  and  her  iron.  The  Saar  coal 
fields  have  been  handed  over  to  France  absolutely,  while 
the  war  damages  of  the  French  mines  have  been  repaired 
or  can  be  repaired  in  a  few  years.  Upper  Silesia  being 
subject  to  the  plebiscite  with  the  occupation  of  the  Allied 
troops,  Germany  must  have  lost  several  of  her  most  im- 
portant coal  fields  had  the  plebiscite  gone  against  her. 

Germany  is  forced  to  deliver  in  part  reparation  to 
France  7,000,000  tons  of  coal  a  year  for  ten  years,  besides 
a  quantity  of  coal  equal  to  the  yearly  ante-bellum  output 
of  the  coal  mines  of  the  north  of  France  and  of  the  Pas-de- 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  47 

Calais,  which  were  entirely  destroyed  during  the  war ;  the 
said  quantity  not  to  exceed  20,000,000  tons  in  the  first 
five  years  and  8,000,000  tons  during  the  five  succeeding 
years  (Part  vn,  5).  Moreover,  Germany  must  give  8,000,- 
000  tons  to  Belgium  for  a  period  of  ten  years,  and  to  Italy 
a  quantity  of  coal  which,  commencing  at  4,500,000  tons  for 
the  year  1919-1920,  reaches  the  figure  of  8,500,000  tons  in 
the  five  years  after  1923-1924.  To  Luxemburg,  Germany 
must  provide  coal  in  the  same  average  quantity  as  in  pre- 
war times.  Altogether  Germany  is  compelled  to  hand  over 
to  the  winners  as  part  reparation  about  25,000,000  tons  of 
coal  a  year. 

For  three  years  Polish  exports  to  Germany,  and  for 
five  years  exports  from  Luxemburg  into  Germany,  will 
be  free  of  all  duty,  without  right  of  reciprocity  (Art.  268). 

The  Allies  have  the  right  to  adopt,  in  the  territory  on 
the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  occupied  by  their  troops,  a 
special  customs  regime  both  as  regards  imports  and  exports 
(Art.  270). 

After  having  surrendered,  as  per  Par.  7  of  the  armistice 
terms,  5,000  locomotives  and  150,000  trucks  and  carriages 
with  all  their  accessories  and  fittings  (Art.  250),  Germany 
must  hand  over  the  railway  systems  of  the  territories  she 
has  lost,  with  all  the  rolling  stock  in  a  good  state  of  preser- 
vation, and  this  measure  applies  even  to  Russian  Poland 
occupied  by  Germany  during  the  war  (Art.  371). 

The  German  transport  system  is  placed  under  control, 
and  the  administration  of  the  Elbe,  the  Rhine,  the  Oder, 
the  Danube,  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  pass  through 
more  than  one  state  and  give  access  to  the  sea,  is  entrusted 
to  inter-allied  commissions.  In  all  these  commissions  Ger- 
many is  represented  by  a  small  minority.  France  and 
Great    Britain,    who    are    not    directly    interested,    have 


48  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

numerous  representatives  on  all  the  important  river  com- 
missions, while  on  the  Rhine  commission  Germany  has  only 
four  votes  out  of  nineteen  (Art.  332  to  337).  A  privilege 
of  first  degree  is  established  on  all  production  and  re- 
sources of  the  German  States  to  insure  the  payment  of 
reparations  and  other  charges  resulting  from  the  treaty 
(Art.  248). 

The  total  cost  of  the  Allied  and  Associated  Armies  will 
be  borne  by  Germany,  including  the  upkeep  of  men  and 
beasts,  pay  the  lodging,  heating,  clothing,  etc.,  and  even 
veterinary  services,  motor-lorries  and  automobiles.  All 
these  expenses  must  be  reimbursed  in  gold  marks 
(Art.  249). 

The  privilege,  as  per  Art.  248  of  the  treaty,  is  to  be 
applied  in  the  following  order: 

(a)  Reimbursement  of  expenses  for  the  armies  of  oc- 
cupation during  the  armistice  and  after  the  peace  treaty. 

(b)  Payment  of  the  reparations  as  established  by  the 
treaty  or  treaties  or  supplementary  conventions. 

(c)  Other  expenses  deriving  from  the  armistice  terms, 
from  the  peace  treaty  and  from  other  supplementary  terms 
and  conventions  (Art.  251).  Restitution,  on  the  basis  of 
an  estimate  presented  sixty  days  after  the  application  of 
the  treaty  by  the  Commission  of  Reparations,  of  the  live 
stock  stolen  or  destroyed  by  the  Germans  and  necessary  for 
the  reconstruction  of  the  invaded  countries,  with  the  right 
to  exact  from  Germany,  as  part  reparations,  the  delivery 
of  machinery,  heating  apparatus,  furniture,  etc. 

Reimbursement  to  Belgium  of  all  the  sums  loaned  to 
her  by  the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers  during  the  war. 

Compensation  for  the  losses  and  damages  sustained  by 
the  civilian  population  of  the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers 
during  the  period  in  which  they  were  at  war  with  Germany 
(Art.  232  and  Part  vn,  1). 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  49 

Payment,  during  the  first  two  years,  of  twenty  billion 
marks  in  gold  or  by  the  delivery  of  goods,  shipping,  etc., 
on  account  of  compensation  (Art.  235). 

The  reparations  owed  by  Germany  concern  chiefly: 

1.  Damages  and  loss  of  life  and  property  sustained  by 
the  civilian  population. 

2.  Damages  sustained  by  civilian  victims  of  cruelty, 
violence  or  ill-treatment. 

3.  Damages  caused  on  occupied  or  invaded  territories. 

4.  Damages  through  cruelty  to  and  ill-treatment  of 
prisoners  of  war. 

5.  Pensions  and  compensations  of  all  kinds  paid  by  the 
Allied  and  Associated  Powers  to  the  military  victims  of  the 
war  and  to  their  families. 

6.  Subsidies  paid  by  the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers 
to  the  families  and  other  dependents  of  men  having  served 
in  the  army,  etc.,  etc.  (Part  vn,  1).  These  expenses,  which 
have  been  calculated  at  varying  figures,  commencing  from 
350  billions,  have  undergone  considerable  fluctuations. 

I  have  given  the  general  lines  of  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles. 

The  other  treaties,  far  less  important,  inasmuch 
as  the  situation  of  all  the  losing  countries  was 
already  well  defined,  especially  as  regards  terri- 
torial questions,  by  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  are  cast 
in  the  same  mold  and  contain  no  essential  variation. 

Now  these  treaties  constitute  an  absolutely  new 
fact,  and  no  one  can  affirm  that  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles is  in  the  least  degree  derived  from  the  re- 
peated declarations  of  the  Entente  and  from  Wil- 
son's solemn  pledges  uttered  in  the  name  of  those 
who  took  part  in  the  war. 


50  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

If  the  terms  of  the  armistice  were  deeply  in  con- 
trast with  the  pledges  to  which  the  Entent  Powers 
had  bound  themselves  before  the  whole  world,  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles  and  the  other  treaties  patterned 
upon  it  are  a  deliberate  negation  of  all  that  had  been 
promised,  amounting  to  a  debt  of  honor,  and  which 
had  contributed  much  more  powerfully  toward  the 
defeat  of  the  enemy  than  the  entry  in  the  field  of 
many  fresh  divisions. 

In  the  state  of  extreme  exhaustion  in  which  both 
conquerors  and  losers  found  themselves  in  1918,  in 
the  terrible  suffering  of  the  Germanic  group  of  bel- 
ligerents, deprived  for  four  years  of  sufficient  nour- 
ishment and  of  the  most  elementary  necessaries  of 
life,  in  the  moral  collapse  which  had  taken  the  place 
of  boasting  and  temerity,  the  words  of  Wilson,  who 
pledged  himself  to  a  just  peace  and  established  its 
terms,  proclaiming  them  to  the  world,  had  com- 
pletely broken  down  whatever  force  of  resistance 
there  still  remained.  They  were  the  most  powerful 
instruments  of  victory,  and  if  not  the  essential  cause, 
certainly  not  the  least  important  among  the  causes 
which  brought  about  the  collapse  of  the  Central 
Empires. 

Germany  had  been  deeply  hit  by  the  armistice. 
Obliged  to  hand  over  immediately  5,000  locomotives 
and  150,000  railway  trucks  and  carriages  at  the  very 
time  when  she  had  to  demobilize,  during  the  first 
months  she  found  her  traffic  almost  completely 
paralyzed. 

Every  war  brings  virulent  germs  of  revolution  in 
the  vanquished  countries.     The  War  of  1870  gave 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  51 

France  the  impulsive  manifestations  of  the  Com- 
mune in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  war  gave  rise 
in  Germany  during  the  first  months  after  the  armis- 
tice to  a  violent  revolutionary  crisis,  overcome  not 
without  difficulty  and  still  representing  a  grave 
menace. 

Forced  to  surrender  immediately  a  large  quantity 
of  live  stock,  to  demobilize  when  the  best  part  of  her 
railway  material  had  gone,  still  hampered  by  the 
blockade,  Germany,  against  the  interest  of  the  Allies 
themselves,  has  been  obliged  to  sacrifice  her  ex- 
change because,  in  the  absence  of  sufficient  help,  she 
has  had  to  buy  the  most  indispensable  foodstuffs  in 
neutral  countries.  Her  paper  currency,  which  at  the 
end  of  1918  amounted  to  twenty-two  billion  marks, 
not  excessive  as  compared  with  that  of  other  coun- 
tries, immediately  increased  with  a  growing  cres- 
cendo till  it  reached,  in  a  very  short  time,  the  figure 
of  eighty-eight  billions,  thus  rendering  from  the  very 
first  the  payment  of  indemnities  in  gold  extremely 
difficult. 

The  most  skilled  men  have  been  thrust  into  an 
absolute  impossibility  of  producing.  To  have  de- 
prived Germany  of  her  merchant  fleet,  built  up  with 
so  much  care,  means  to  have  deprived  the  freight 
market  of  sixty  thousand  of  the  most  skilled,  intelli- 
gent and  hard-working  seamen. 

But  what  Germany  has  lost  as  a  result  of  the 
treaty  surpasses  all  imagination  and  can  only  be 
regarded  as  a  sentence  of  ruin  and  decay  deliber- 
ately imposed  upon  a  whole  people^ 

Germany,  without  taking  into  account  the  coun- 


52  THE  WEECK  OF  EUROPE 

tries  subject  to  plebiscite,  lias  lost  7.5  per  cent,  of 
her  population.  Should  the  plebiscites  prove  un- 
favorable to  her,  or,  as  the  tendency  seems  to  be, 
should  these  plebiscites  be  disregarded,  Germany 
would  lose  13.5  per  cent,  of  her  population.  Purely 
German  territories  have  been  forcibly  wrenched 
from  her.  What  has  been  done  in  the  case  of  the 
Baar  has  no  precedents  in  modern  history.  It  is  a 
country  of  650,000  inhabitants  of  whom  not  even  one 
hundred  are  French,  a  country  which  has  been  Ger- 
man for  a  thousand  years,  and  which  was  temporar- 
ily occupied  by  France  for  purely  military  reasons. 
In  spite  of  these  facts,  however,  not  only  have  the 
coal  fields  of  the  Saar  been  assigned  in  perpetuity 
to  France  as  compensation  for  the  damages  caused 
to  the  French  mines  in  the  north,  but  the  territory  of 
the  Saar  forms  part  of  the  French  customs  regime 
and  will  be  subjected  after  fifteen  years  to  a  plebis- 
cite, when  such  a  necessity  is  absolutely  incompre- 
hensible, as  the  population  is  purely  German  and 
has  never  in  any  form  or  manner  expressed  the  in- 
tention of  changing  its  nationality. 

The  ebb  and  flow  of  peoples  in  Europe  during  the 
long  war  of  nationalities  has  often  changed  the 
situation  of  frontier  countries.  Sometimes  it  may 
still  be  regarded  as  a  necessity  to  include  small 
groups  of  alien  race  and  language  in  different  states 
in  order  to  insure  strategically  safe  frontiers.  But, 
with  the  exception  of  the  necessity  for  self-defense, 
there  is  nothing  to  justify  what  has  been  done  to 
the  detriment  of  Germany. 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  53 

Wilson  had  only  said  that  France  should  receive 
compensation  for  the  wrong  suffered  in  1871  and 
that  Belgium  should  be  evacuated  and  reconstructed. 
What  had  been  destroyed  was  to  have  been  built  up 
again ;  but  no  one  had  ever  thought  during  the  war 
of  handing  over  to  Belgium  a  part,  however  small, 
of  German  territory  or  of  surrendering  predomin- 
antly and  purely  German  territories  to  Poland. 

The  German  colonies  covered  an  area  of  nearly 
three  million  square  kilometers;  they  had  reached 
an  admirable  degree  of  development  and  were  man- 
aged with  the  greatest  skill  and  ability.  They  repre- 
sented an  enormous  value;  nevertheless  they  have 
been  assigned  to  France,  Great  Britain  and  in  minor 
proportion  to  Japan,  without  figuring  at  all  in  the 
reparations  account. 

It  is  calculated  that  as  a  result  of  the  treaty,  owing 
to  the  loss  of  a  considerable  percentage  of  her  agri- 
cultural area,  Germany  is  twenty-five  per  cent,  the 
poorer  in  regard  to  the  production  of  cereals  and 
potatoes  and  ten  to  twelve  per  cent,  in  regard  to  the 
breeding  of  live  stock. 

The  restitution  of  Alsace-Lorraine  (the  only 
formal  claim  advanced  by  the  Entente  in  its  war 
program)  has  deprived  Germany  of  the  bulk  of  her 
iron-ore  production.  In  1913  Germany  could  count 
on  21,000,000  tons  of  iron  from  Lorraine,  7,000,000 
from  Luxemburg,  138,000  from  Upper  Silesia  and 
7,344  from  the  rest  of  her  territory.  This  means 
that  Germany  is  reduced  to  only  20.41  per  cent,  of 
her  pre-war  wealth  in  iron  ore. 


54  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

In  1913  the  Saar  district  represented  8.95  per 
cent,  of  the  total  production  of  coal,  and  Upper 
Silesia  22.85  per  cent. 

Having  lost  about  eighty  per  cent,  of  her  iron  ore 
and  large  stocks  of  coal,  while  her  production  is 
severely  handicapped,  Germany,  completely  disor- 
ganized abroad  after  the  suppression  of  all  economic 
equilibrium,  is  condemned  to  look  on  helplessly  while 
the  very  sources  of  her  national  wealth  dry  up  and 
cease  to  flow.  In  order  to  form  a  correct  estimate 
of  the  facts  we  must  hold  in  mind  that  one-fifth  of 
Germany's  total  exports  before  the  war  consisted  of 
iron  and  of  tools  and  machinery  manufactured  in 
large  part  from  German  ores. 

If  we  now  consider  the  fourteen  points  of  Presi- 
dent "Wilson,  accepted  by  the  Entente  as  a  peace 
program,  comparing  the  actual  results  obtained  by 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  we  are  faced  with  the  fol- 
lowing situation: 

1.  "After  loyal  peace  negotiations  and  the  con- 
clusion and  signing  of  peace  treaties,  secret  diplo- 
matic agreements  must  be  regarded  as  abolished," 
says  Wilson.  On  the  contrary,  secret  peace  negotia- 
tions were  protracted  for  more  than  six  months,  and 
no  hearing  was  even  granted  to  the  German  dele- 
gates who  wished  to  expose  their  views.  By  a  sys- 
tem of  treaties  France  has  created  a  military  al- 
liance with  Belgium  and  Poland,  thus  completely 
cornering  Germany. 

2.  Absolute  freedom  of  the  sea  beyond  territorial 
waters.     Nothing,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  has  been 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  55 

changed  from  the  pre-war  state  of  things ;  with  the 
difference  that  the  losers  have  had  to  surrender 
their  mercantile  fleets  and  are  therefore  no  longer 
directly  interested  in  the  question. 

3.  Removal  of  all  economic  barriers  and  equality 
of  trade  conditions.  The  treaty  imposes  on  Ger- 
many terms  without  reciprocity,  and  almost  all  En- 
tente countries  have  already  adopted  protectionist 
and  prohibitive  tariffs. 

4.  Adequate  guarantees  to  be  given  and  received 
for  the  reduction  of  armaments  to  a  minimum  com- 
patible with  home  defense.  The  treaties  have  com- 
pelled the  vanquished  countries  to  destroy  or  to  sur- 
render their  navies,  and  have  reduced  the  standing 
armies  of  Germany  to  100,000  men,  including  offi- 
cers, of  Bulgaria  to  23,000,  of  Austria  to  30,000  (in 
reality  only  21,000) ,  of  Hungary  to  35,000.  The  con- 
quering states,  on  the  other  hand,  maintain  enor- 
mous armies  numerically  superior  to  those  which 
they  had  before  the  war.  France,  Belgium  and  Po- 
land have  between  them  about  1,400,000  men  with  the 
colors.  Germany,  Austria,  Hungary  and  Bulgaria 
altogether  have  only  179,000  men  under  arms,  while 
Rumania  alone  has  206,000  and  Poland  more  than 
450,000  men. 

5.  Loyal  and  straight  forivard  settlement  of 
colonial  rights  and  claims,  based  chiefly  on  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  peoples  directly  concerned.  All  her 
colonies  have  been  taken  from  Germany,  who  needed 
them  more  than  any  other  country  of  Continental 
Europe,  having  a  density  of  population  of  123  in- 


56  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

habitants  per  square  kilometer  (Italy  has  a  density 
of  133  per  square  kilometer)  while  France  has  74, 
Spain  40,  and  European  Russia  before  the  war  had 
only  24. 

6.  Evacuation  of  all  Russian  territories  and 
cordial  cooperation  for  the  reconstruction  and  de- 
velopmeni  of  Russia.  For  a  long  time  the  Entente 
has  given  its  support  to  the  military  ventures  of 
Koltchak,  Judenic,  Denikin  and  Wrangel,  all  men 
of  the  old  regime. 

7.  Evacuation  and  reconstruction  of  Belgium. 
This  has  been  done,  but  to  Belgium  have  been  as- 
signed territories  which  she  never  dreamed  of  claim- 
ing before  the  war. 

8.  Liberation  of  French  territories,  reconstruc- 
tion of  invaded  regions  and  restitution  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  to  France  in  respect  of  the  territories 
taken  from  her  in  1871.  France  occupies  a  dominat- 
ing position  in  the  Saar  which  constitutes  an  abso- 
lute denial  of  the  principle  of  nationality. 

9.  Rectification  of  the  Italian  frontier,  according 
to  clearly  defined  lines  of  nationality.  As  these 
lines  have  never  been  clearly  defined  or  recognized, 
the  solution  arrived  at  has  been  distasteful  both  to 
the  Italians  and  to  their  neighbors. 

10.  The  peoples  of  Austria-Hungary  to  be  left 
free  to  unite  together  or  to  form  autonomous  states 
in  the  manner  best  suited  to  their  development.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  the  treaties  have  taken  the  greatest 
possible  number  of  Germans  from  Austria  and  of 
Magyars  from  Hungary  in  order  to  hand  them  over 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  57 

to  Poland,  to  Czecho-Slovakia,  to  Rumania  and  to 
Jugo-Slavia,  namely  to  populations  for  the  most 
part  inferior  to  the  Germans. 

11.  Evacuation  of  Rumania,  Serbia  and  Mon- 
tenegro. This  has  been  effected,  but  whereas  the 
Entente  Powers  have  always  proclaimed  their  fun- 
damental duty  for  the  reconstruction  of  Montenegro, 
they  all  contributed  to  its  disappearance,  chiefly  at 
the  instigation  of  France. 

12.  A  limited  sovereignty  to  the  Turkish  parts  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire,  liberation  of  other  nation- 
alities and  freedom  of  navigation  in  the  Dardanelles 
placed  under  international  guarantees.  What  really 
happened  was  that  the  Entente  Powers  immediately 
tried  to  possess  themselves  of  Asia  Minor;  but 
events  rendered  it  necessary  to  adopt  a  regime  of 
mandates  because  direct  sovereignty  would  have 
been  too  perilous  an  experiment.  A  sense  of  deep 
perturbation  and  unrest  pervades  the  whole  of 
Islam. 

13.  An  independent  Polish  State  with  popida- 
tions  undoubtedly  Polish  to  be  founded  as  a  neutral 
state  with  a  free  and  secure  outlet  to  the  sea  and 
whose  integrity  is  to  be  guaranteed  by  international 
accords.  In  reality  a  Polish  State  has  been  formed 
with  populations  undoubtedly  non-Polish,  having  a 
markedly  military  character  and  aiming  at  further 
expansion  in  Ukranian  and  German  territory.  It 
has  a  population  of  31,000,000  inhabitants  while  it 
should  not  exceed  18,000,000,  and  proposes  to  isolate 
Russia  from  Germany.    Moreover  the  Free  State  of 


58  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Danzig,  practically  dependent  on  Poland,  constitutes 
a  standing  menace  to  Germany. 

14.  Foundation  of  the  League  of  Nations  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  reestablishing  order  among  nations, 
and  I  aging  the  basis  of  reciprocal  guarantees  of  ter- 
ritorial integrity  and  political  independence  for  all 
states,  both  great  and  small.  After  more  than  two 
years  have  elapsed  since  the  conclusion  of  peace  and 
three  since  the  armistice,  the  League  of  Nations  is 
still  nothing  but  a  Holy  Alliance  the  object  of  which 
is  to  guarantee  the  privileges  of  the  conquerors.  Af- 
ter the  vote  of  the  Senate,  deserving  of  all  praise 
from  every  point  of  view,  the  United  States  does 
not  form  part  of  the  League  nor  do  the  losing  coun- 
tries, including  Germany. 

It  is  therefore  obvious  that  the  most  solemn 
pledges  on  which  peace  was  based  have  not  been 
maintained ;  the  noble  declarations  made  by  the  En- 
tente during  the  war  have  been  forgotten ;  forgotten 
all  the  solemn  collective  pledges ;  forgotten  and  dis- 
regarded Wilson's  proclamations  which,  without 
being  real  contracts  or  treaties,  were  something  far 
more  solemn  and  binding,  a  pledge  taken  before 
the  whole  world  at  its  most  tragic  hour  to  give  the 
enemy  a  guarantee  of  justice. 

Without  expressing  any  opinion  on  the  treaties 
themselves,  it  can  not  be  denied  that  the  manner  in 
which  they  have  been  applied  has  been  even  worse. 
For  the  first  time  in  civilized  Europe,  not  during 
the  war,  when  everything  was  permissible  in  the 
supreme  interests  of  defense,  but  now  that  the  war 


THE  PEACE  TREATIES  59 

is  over,  the  Entente  Powers,  though  maintaining 
armies  more  numerous  than  ever,  for  which  the  van- 
quished must  pay,  have  occupied  German  territories, 
inhabited  by  the  most  cultured,  progressive  and 
technically  advanced  populations  in  the  world,  as 
an  insult  and  a  slight,  with  colored  troops,  men  from 
darkest  and  most  barbarous  Africa,  to  act  as  defend- 
ers of  the  rights  of  civilization  and  to  maintain  the 
law  and  order  of  democracy. 

The  acts  of  barbarism  and  violence  committed  in 
the  occupied  section  of  Germany  are  without  par- 
allel in  modern  history  and  a  deep  disgrace  to 
European  civilization. 

The  time  is  not  far  distant  when  it  will  be  re- 
garded as  a  mark  of  dishonor  for  the  victorious  na- 
tions to  have  made  abuse  of  victory  as  victorious 
Germany  never  did,  indeed  to  have  exploited  victory 
to  a  greater  degree  than  even  those  European  coun- 
tries which  are  most  frequently  and  justly  accused 
of  barbarism. 


Ill 

THE   PEACE  TREATIES — THEIB  ORIGIN  AND  AIMS 

How,  after  the  solemn  pledges  undertaken  during 
the  war,  a  peace  could  have  been  concluded  which 
practically  negatives  all  the  principles  professed 
during  the  war  and  all  the  obligations  entered  into, 
is  easily  explained  when  we  note  the  progress  of 
events  from  the  autumn  of  1918  to  the  end  of  the 
spring  of  1919.  I  took  no  direct  part  in  those  events, 
as  I  had  no  share  in  the  government  of  Italy  from 
January  to  the  end  of  June,  1919,  the  period  during 
which  the  Treaties  of  Versailles  and  Saint-Germain- 
en-Laye  were  being  prepared.  The  Orlando  Minis- 
try was  resigning  when  the  Treaty  of  Versailles 
was  drawn  up  for  signature,  and  the  situation  which 
confronted  the  Ministry  of  which  I  was  head  was 
clearly  defined.  Nevertheless  I  asked  the  minister 
of  foreign  affairs  and  the  delegates  of  the  preced- 
ing Cabinet  to  put  their  signatures  to  it.  Signing 
was  a  necessity,  and  it  fell  to  me  later  on  to  put  my 
signature  to  the  ratification. 

The  Treaty  of  Versailles  and  those  which  have 
followed  with  Austria,  Hungary,  Bulgaria  and  Tur- 
key have  been  validly  signed,  and  they  pledge  the 
good  faith  of  the  countries  which  have  signed  them. 

60 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         61 

But  in  the  application  of  them  there  is  need  of  great 
breadth  of  view ;  there  is  need  of  dispassionate  study 
to  see  if  they  can  be  maintained,  if  the  fulfilment  of 
the  impossible  or  unjust  conditions  demanded  of  the 
conquered  countries  will  not  do  more  harm  to  the 
conquerors,  will  not,  in  point  of  actual  fact,  pave 
the  way  to  their  ruin. 

If  there  is  one  thing,  Lloyd  George  has  said, 
which  will  never  be  forgotten  or  forgiven,  it  is 
arrogance  and  injustice  in  the  hour  of  triumph.  We 
have  never  tired  of  saying  that  Germany  is  the  most 
barbarous  among  civilized  countries,  that  under  her 
civilization  is  hidden  all  the  barbarism  of  medieval 
times,  that  she  puts  into  practise  the  doctrine  of 
might  over  right.  At  the  present  moment  it  is  our 
duty  to  ask  ourselves  whether  the  principles  which 
we  have  for  so  long  been  attributing  to  Germany 
have  not  passed  over  to  the  other  side  in  a  form 
which  is  even  more  fierce  and  degenerate,  and 
whether  in  our  own  hearts  there  is  not  a  bitterness 
of  hatred  clouding  our  judgment  and  robbing  our 
program  of  all  action  that  can  do  real  good. 

Prussia  won  the  war  against  Austria-Hungary  in 
1866,  and  did  not  ask  for  or  impose  any  really 
onerous  terms.  It  was  contented  with  having  re- 
gained hegemony  among  the  German  people.  Prus- 
sia conquered  France  in  1870.  It  was  an  unjust 
war,  and  Prussia  laid  down  two  unjust  conditions: 
Alsace-Lorraine  and  the  indemnity  of  five  billion 
francs.  As  soon  as  the  indemnity  was  paid — and  it 
was  an  indemnity  that  could  be  paid  in  one  lump 


62  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

sum — Prussia  evacuated  the  occupied  territory.  It 
did  not  claim  of  France  its  colonies  or  its  fleet,  it 
did  not  impose  the  reduction  of  its  armaments  or 
control  of  its  transport  after  the  peace.  The  Treaty 
of  Frankfort  is  a  humanitarian  act  compared  with 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles. 

If  Germany  had  won  the  war — Germany  to  whom 
we  have  always  attributed  the  worst  possible  inten- 
tions— what  could  it  have  done  that  the  Entente  has 
not  done?  It  is  possible  that,  as  it  is  gifted  with 
more  practical  common  sense,  it  might  have  laid 
down  less  impossible  conditions  in  order  to  gain  a 
secure  advantage  without  ruining  the  conquered 
countries. 

There  are  about  ninety  millions  of  Germans  in 
Europe,  and  perhaps  fifteen  millions  in  different 
countries  outside  Europe.  But  in  the  heart  of 
Europe  they  represent  a  great  ethnic  unity;  they 
are  the  largest  and  most  compact  national  group  in 
that  continent.  With  all  the  good  and  bad  points  of 
their  race,  too  methodical  and  at  the  same  time 
easily  depressed  by  a  severe  setback,  they  are  still 
the  most  cultivated  people  on  earth.  It  is  impossible 
to  imagine  that  they  can  disappear,  much  less  that 
they  can  reconcile  themselves  to  live  in  a  condition 
of  slavery.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Entente  has 
built  on  a  foundation  of  shifting  sand  a  Europe  full 
of  small  states  poisoned  with  imperialism  and  in 
ruinous  conditions  of  economy  and  finance,  and  a 
too  great  Poland  without  a  national  basis  and  neces- 
sarily the  enemy  of  Russia  and  of  Germany. 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         63 

No  people  has  always  been  victorious ;  the  peoples 
who  have  fought  most  wars  in  modern  Europe,  Eng- 
lish, French  and  Germans,  have  had  alternate  vic- 
tories and  defeats.  A  defeat  often  carries  in  its 
train  reconsideration  which  is  followed  by  renewed 
energy:  the  greatness  of  England  is  largely  due  to 
its  steadfast  determination  to  destroy  the  Napole- 
onic Empire.  What  elevates  men  is  this  steadfast 
and  persevering  effort,  and  a  series  of  such  collec- 
tive efforts  carries  a  nation  to  a  high  place. 

There  is  nothing  lasting  in  the  existing  groupings. 
At  the  moment  of  common  danger  eternal  union  and 
unbreakable  solidarity  are  proclaimed ;  but  both  are 
mere  literary  expressions. 

Great  Britain,  the  country  which  has  the  least  need 
to  make  war,  has  been  at  war  for  centuries  with 
nearly  all  the  European  countries.  There  is  one 
country  only  against  which  it  has  never  made  war, 
not  even  when  a  commercial  challenge  from  the 
mercantile  Republics  of  Italy  seemed  possible.  That 
country  is  Italy.  This  proves  that  the  attitude  of 
Italy  is  not  and  can  not  be  in  opposition  to  British 
policy,  and  indeed  that  between  the  two  nations 
there  is  complete  agreement  in  European  conti- 
nental policy.  It  is  the  common  desire  of  the  two 
nations,  though  perhaps  for  different  reasons,  that 
no  one  state  shall  have  hegemony  on  the  continent. 
But  between  the  years  1688  and  1815  Great  Britain 
and  France  were  at  war  for  sixty-one  years:  for 
sixty-one  years,  that  is,  out  of  a  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  there  was  a  state  of  war  between  the  two. 


04  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

General  progress,  evinced  in  various  ways,  above 
all  in  respect  for  and  in  the  autonomy  of  other 
peoples,  is  a  guarantee  for  all.  No  peoples  arc 
always  victorious,  and  no  peoples  arc  always 
defeated.  In  the  time  of  Napoleon  the  First  th<' 
French  derided  the  lack  of  fighting*  spirit  in  the 
German  peoples,  producers  of  any  number  of 
philosophers  and  writers.  They  wTould  have  laughed 
at  any  one  w7ho  suggested  the  possibility  of  any 
early  German  military  triumph.  After  1815  the 
countries  of  the  Holy  Alliance  would  never  have  be- 
lieved in  the  possibility  of  the  revolutionary  spirit 
being  reawakened;  they  w^ere  sure  of  lasting  peace 
in  Europe.  In  1871  the  Germans  had  no  doubt  at 
all  that  they  had  finally  smothered  France ;  now  the 
Entente  thinks  that  it  has  finally  smothered  Ger- 
many. 

But  civilization  has  gained  something:  it  has 
gained  that  collection  of  rules,  moral  conditions, 
sentiments,  international  regulations,  wdiich  tend 
both  to  mitigate  violence  and  to  regulate  in  a  form 
which  is  tolerable,  if  not  always  just,  relations  be- 
tween conquerors  and  conquered,  above  all,  a  re- 
spect for  the  liberty  and  autonomy  of  the  latter. 

Now,  the  treaties  which  have  been  made  are,  from 
the  moral  point  of  view,  immeasurably  worse  than 
any  consummated  in  former  days,  in  that  they  carry 
Europe  back  to  a  phase  of  civilization  wThich  wTas 
thought  to  be  over  and  done  with  centuries  ago. 
They  are  a  danger  too.  For  as  every  one  who  takes 
vengeance  does   so  in  a  degree  greater  than  the 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         65 

damage  suffered,  if  one  supposes  for  a  moment  that 
the  conquered  of  to-day  may  be  the  conquerors  of 
to-morrow,  to  what  lengths  of  violence,  degradation 
and  barbarism  may  not  Europe  be  dragged? 

Every  effort,  then,  should  now  be  made  to  follow 
the  opposite  road  to  that  traversed  up  to  the  present, 
the  more  so  in  that  the  treaties  can  not  be  carried 
out ;  and  if  it  is  desired  that  the  conquered  countries 
shall  pay  compensation  to  the  conquerors,  at  least 
in  part,  for  the  most  serious  damage,  then  the  line 
to  be  followed  must  be  based  on  realities  instead  of 
on  violence. 

But  before  trying  to  see  how  and  why  the  treaties 
can  not  be  carried  out,  it  may  be  well  to  consider 
how  the  actual  system  of  treaties  has  been  reached, 
in  complete  opposition  to  all  that  was  said  by  the 
Entente  during  the  war  and  to  President  Wilson's 
fourteen  points.  At  the  same  time  ought  to  be  ex- 
amined the  causes  which  led  in  six  months  from  the 
declarations  of  the  Entente  and  of  President  Wil- 
son to  the  Treaty  of  Versailles. 

The  most  important  cause  for  what  has  happened 
was  the  choice  of  Paris  as  the  meeting-place  of  the 
Conference.  After  the  war  Paris  was  the  least  fitted 
of  any  place  for  the  holding  of  a  Peace  Conference, 
and  in  the  two  French  leaders,  the  President  of  the 
Republic,  Poincare,  and  the  President  of  the  Council 
of  Ministers,  Clemenceau,  even  if  the  latter  was 
more  adaptable  in  mind  and  more  open  to  considera- 
tion of  arguments  on  the  other  side,  were  two  tem- 
peraments driving  inevitably  to  extremes.    Victory 


66  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

had  come  in  a  way  that  surpassed  all  expectation; 
a  people  that,  living  through  every  day  the  war  had 
lasted,  had  passed  through  every  sorrow,  privation, 
agony,  had  now  but  one  thought,  to  destroy  the 
enemy.  The  atmosphere  of  Paris  was  fiery.  The 
decision  of  the  peace  terms  to  be  imposed  on  the 
enemy  was  to  be  taken  in  a  city  which  a  few  months 
before,  one  might  really  say  a  few  weeks  before,  had 
been  under  the  fire  of  the  long-range  guns  invented 
by  the  Germans,  in  hourly  dread  of  enemy  aero- 
planes. Even  now  it  is  inexplicable  that  President 
Wilson  did  not  realize  the  situation  which  must 
inevitably  come  about.  It  is  possible  that  the  delir- 
ium of  enthusiasm  with  which  he  was  received  at 
Paris  may  have  given  him  the  idea  that  it  was  in 
him  alone  that  the  people  trusted,  may  have  made 
him  take  the  welcome  given  to  the  representative  of 
the  deciding  factor  of  the  war  as  the  welcome  to  the 
principles  which  he  had  proclaimed  to  the  world. 
Months  later,  when  he  left  France  amid  general  in- 
difference if  not  distrust,  President  Wilson  must 
have  realized  that  he  had  lost,  not  popularity,  but 
prestige,  the  one  sure  element  of  success  for  the  head 
of  a  government,  much  more  so  for  the  head  of  a 
state.  It  was  inevitable  that  a  peace  conference  held 
in  Paris,  only  a  few  months  after  the  war,  with  the 
direction  and  preparation  of  the  work  almost  en- 
tirely in  French  hands  and  with  Clemenceau  at  the 
head  of  everything,  should  reach  the  conclusion  it 
did  reach;  all  the  more  so  when  Italy  held  apart 
right  from  the  beginning,  and  England,  though  con- 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         67 

vinced  of  the  mistakes  being  made,  could  not  act 
freely  and  effectively. 

The  first  duty  of  the  Peace  Conference  was  to 
restore  a  state  of  equilibrium  and  reestablish  condi- 
tions of  life.  Taking  Europe  as  an  economic  unity, 
broken  by  the  war,  it  was  necessary  first  of  all  and 
in  the  interests  of  all  to  reestablish  conditions  of 
life  which  would  make  it  possible  for  the  crisis  to 
be  overcome  with  the  least  possible  damage. 

I  do  not  propose  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Confer- 
ence, and  it  is  as  well  to  say  at  once  that  I  do  not 
intend  to  make  use  of  any  document  placed  in  my 
hands  for  official  purposes.  But  the  story  of  the 
Paris  Conference  can  now  be  told  with  practical 
completeness  after  what  has  been  published  by  J.  M. 
Keynes  in  his  noble  book  on  the  Economic  Conse- 
quences of  the  War  and  by  the  American  Secretary 
of  State,  Robert  Lansing,  and  after  the  statements 
made  in  the  British  and  French  Parliaments  by 
Lloyd  George  and  Clemenceau.  But  from  the  politi- 
cal point  of  view  the  most  interesting  document  is 
still  Andre  Tardieu's  book,  The  Truth  about  the 
Treaty,  to  which  Clemenceau  wrote  a  preface  and 
which  expresses,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
French  Delegation  at  the  Conference,  the  program 
which  France  laid  before  itself  and  what  it  obtained. 
This  book  explains  how  the  principal  decisions  were 
taken,  and  indeed  can  be  fairly  considered  to  show 
in  a  more  reliable  way  than  any  other  publication 
extant  how  the  work  of  the  Conference  proceeded. 
For  not  only  was  M.  Tardieu  one  of  the  French  dele- 


68  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

gates  to  the  Conference,  one  of  those  who  signed  the 
Versailles  Treaty,  but  also  he  prepared  the  plan 
of  work  as  well  as  the  solutions  of  the  most  im- 
portant questions  in  his  capacity  of  trusted  agent  of 
the  prime  minister. 

The  determination  in  the  mind  of  President  Wil- 
son when  he  came  to  Paris  was  to  carry  through  his 
program  of  the  League  of  Nations.  He  was  fickle  in 
his  infallibility,  but  he  had  the  firmest  faith  that  he 
was  working  for  the  peace  of  the  world  and  above 
all  for  the  glory  of  the  United  States.  Of  European 
things  he  was  supremely  ignorant.  We  are  bound 
to  recognize  his  good  faith,  but  we  are  not  in  the 
least  bound  on  that  account  to  admit  his  capacity  to 
tackle  the  problems  which  with  his  academic  sim- 
plicity he  set  himself  to  solve.  When  he  arrived  in 
Europe  he  had  not  even  prepared  in  outline  a  scheme 
of  what  the  League  of  Nations  was  to  be ;  the  princi- 
pal problems  found  him  unprepared,  and  the  duty  of 
the  crowd  of  experts  (sometimes  not  too  expert)  who 
surrounded  him  seemed  rather  to  be  to  demonstrate 
the  truth  of  his  idea  than  to  prepare  materials  which 
might  serve  as  a  basis  for  well  pondered  decisions. 

He  could  have  made  no  greater  mistake  than  he 
did  in  coming  to  Europe  to  take  part  in  the  meet- 
ings of  the  Conference.  His  figure  lost  relief  at 
once,  in  a  way  it  seemed  to  lose  dignity.  The  head 
of  a  state  was  taking  part  in  meetings  of  heads  of 
governments,  one  of  the  latter  presiding.  It  was 
a  giant  compelled  to  live  in  a  cellar  and  thereby  sac- 
rificing his  height.    He  was  surrounded  by  formal 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         69 

respect  and  in  some  decisions  he  exercised  almost 
despotic  authority,  but  his  work  was  none  the  less 
disordered;  there  was  a  semblance  of  giving  in  to 
him  while  he  was  giving  away  his  entire  program 
without  being  aware  of  it. 

In  his  ignorance  of  European  things  he  was 
brought,  without  recognizing  it,  to  accept  a  series  of 
decisions,  not  superficially  in  opposition  to  his  four- 
teen points  but  which  did  actually  nullify  them. 

Great  Britain  is  part  of  Europe  but  is  not  on  the 
Continent  of  Europe.  While  Germany,  France, 
Italy,  Austria,  Russia,  Hungary,  Holland,  Belgium, 
etc.,  live  the  same  life,  are  one  in  thought,  Great 
Britain  goes  her  own  way  and  lives  her  proud  island 
life.  If  she  had  any  moment  of  supreme  anxiety 
during  the  war,  it  was  in  the  spring  and  summer  of 
1917  during  the  terrible  threat  of  the  destruction  of 
her  shipping  by  submarines  and  the  inability  of 
construction  to  keep  pace  with  it.  But  after  the 
defeat  of  Germany,  Great  Britain  found  herself  with 
a  fleet  far  superior  to  those  of  all  the  rest  of  Europe 
put  together ;  once  more  she  broke  away  from  Con- 
tinental Europe. 

Lloyd  George,  with  swiftly  acting  brain  and  clear 
insight,  undoubtedly  the  most  remarkable  man  at  the 
Paris  Conference,  found  himself  in  a  difficult  situa- 
tion between  President  Wilson's  pronouncements, 
some  of  them,  like  that  regarding  the  freedom  of  the 
seas,  undefined  and  dangerous,  and  the  claims  of 
France  tending,  after  the  recent  brutal  and  sudden 
aggression  it  had  had  to  meet,  not  toward  a  true 


70  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

peace  and  the  reconstruction  of  Europe,  but  toward 
the  vivisection  of  Germany.  In  one  of  the  first  mo- 
ments, just  before  the  general  elections,  Lloyd 
George,  too,  promised  measures  of  the  greatest  se- 
verity, the  trial  of  the  kaiser,  the  punishment  of  all 
guilty  of  atrocities,  compensation  for  all  who  had 
suffered  from  the  war,  the  widest  and  most  com- 
plete indemnity.  But  such  pronouncements  gave 
way  before  his  clear  realization  of  facts,  and  later  on 
he  tried  in  vain  to  put  the  Conference  on  the  plane 
of  such  realization. 

Italy,  as  M.  Tardieu  says  very  plainly  in  The 
Truth  about  the  Treaty,  carried  no  weight  in  the 
Conference.  In  the  meetings  of  the  prime  ministers 
and  President  Wilson  "the  tone  was  conversational. 
Neither  pomp  nor  pose.  Signor  Orlando  spoke  but 
little;  Italy 's  interest  in  the  Conference  was  far  too 
much,  confined  to  the  question  of  Fiume,  and  her 
share  in  the  debates  was  too  limited  as  a  result. 
It  resolved  itself  into  a  three-cornered  conversation 
between  Wilson,  Clemenceau  and  Lloyd  George." 
The  Italian  Government  came  into  the  war  in  May, 
1915,  on  the  basis  of  the  London  Agreement  of  the 
preceding  April,  and  it  had  never  thought  of  claim- 
ing Fiume  either  before  the  war  when  it  was  free  to 
lay  down  conditions  or  during  the  progress  of  the 
war. 

The  Italian  people  had  always  been  kept  in  ignor- 
ance of  the  principles  established  in  the  London 
Agreement.  One  of  the  men  chiefly  responsible  for 
the  American  policy  openly  complained  to  me  that 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         71 

when  the  United  States  came  into  the  war  no  noti- 
fication was  given  them  of  the  London  Agreement  in 
which  were  defined  the  future  conditions  of  part  of 
Europe.  A  far  worse  mistake  was  made  in  the 
failure  to  communicate  the  London  Agreement  to 
Serbia,  which  would  certainly  have  accepted  it  with- 
out hesitation  in  the  terrible  position  in  which  it 
then  was. 

But  the  most  serious  thing  of  all  was  that  Italian 
ministers  were  unaware  of  its  provisions  till  after 
its  publication  in  London  by  the  organ  of  the  Jugo- 
slavs, which  had  evidently  received  the  text  from 
Petrograd,  where  the  Bolsheviks  had  published  it. 
In  Italy  the  London  Agreement  was  a  mystery  to 
every  one ;  its  text  was  known  only  to  the  presidents 
of  the  Council  and  the  minister  for  foreign  affairs 
of  the  War  Cabinets.  Thus  only  four  or  five  people 
knew  about  it,  secrecy  was  strictly  kept,  and,  more- 
over, it  can  not  possibly  be  said  that  it  was  in  accord- 
ance either  with  national  ideals  or  the  currents  of 
public  opinion,  much  less  with  any  intelligent  con- 
ception of  Italy's  needs  and  Italy's  future. 

The  framers  of  the  London  Agreement  never 
thought  of  Fiume.  Indeed  they  specifically  ex- 
pressed their  willingness  that  it  should  go  to 
Croatia,  whether  in  the  case  of  Austria-Hungary  re- 
maining united  or  of  the  detachment  of  Croatia  from 
it.  It  is  not  true  that  it  was  through  the  opposition 
of  Russia  or  of  France  that  the  Italian  framers  of 
the  London  Agreement  gave  up  all  claim  to  Fiume. 
There  was  no  opposition  because  there  was  no  claim. 


72  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

The  representatives  of  Russia  and  France  have  told 
me  officially  that  no  renunciation  took  place  through 
any  action  on  the  part  of  their  governments,  because 
no  claim  was  ever  made  to  them.  On  the  other  hand, 
after  the  armistice,  and  when  it  became  known 
through  the  newspapers  that  the  London  Agreement 
gave  Fiume  to  Croatia,  a  very  strong  movement  for 
Fiume  arose,  fanned  by  the  government  itself,  and 
an  equally  strong  movement  in  Fiume  also. 

If,  in  the  London  Agreement,  instead  of  claiming 
large  areas  of  Dalmatia,  which  are  entirely  or  almost 
entirely  Slav,  provision  had  been  made  for  the  con- 
stitution of  a  State  of  Fiume  placed  in  a  condition 
to  guarantee  not  only  the  people  of  Italian  nation- 
ality but  the  economic  interests  of  all  the  peoples  in 
it  and  surrounding  it,  there  is  no  doubt  that  such  a 
claim  on  the  part  of  Italy  would  have  gone  through 
without  opposition. 

During  the  Paris  Conference  the  representatives 
of  Italy  showed  hardly  any  interest  at  all  in  the 
problems  concerning  the  peace  of  Europe,  the  situa- 
tion of  the  conquered  peoples,  the  distribution  of 
raw  materials,  the  regulation  of  the  new  states  and 
their  relations  with  the  victor  countries.  They  con- 
centrated all  their  efforts  on  the  question  of  Fiume, 
that  is  to  say  on  the  one  point  in  which  Italian  ac- 
tion was  fundamentally  weak  in  that,  when  it  was 
free  to  enter  into  the  war  and  lay  down  conditions 
of  peace,  at  the  moment  when  the  Entente  was  with- 
out America's  invaluable  assistance  and  was  begin- 
ning to  doubt  the  capacity  of  Russia  to  carry  on,  it 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         73 

had  never  even  asked  for  Fiume  in  its  War  Treaty, 
that  it  had  made  the  inexplicable  mistake  of  neglect- 
ing to  communicate  that  treaty  to  the  United  States 
when  that  country  came  into  the  war,  and  to  Serbia 
at  the  moment  when  Italy's  effort  had  most  con- 
tributed to  bring  her  needed  assistance.  At  the  con- 
ference Italy  had  no  directing  policy.  It  had  been 
a  part  of  the  system  of  the  German  Alliance,  but  it 
had  left  its  Allies,  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary, 
because  it  recognized  that  the  war  was  unjust,  and 
had  remained  neutral  for  ten  months.  Then,  enter- 
ing into  the  war  freely  and  without  obligation,  there 
was  one  road  for  it  to  follow,  that  of  proclaiming 
solemnly  and  defending  the  principles  of  democracy 
and  justice.  Indeed,  that  was  a  moral  duty  in  that 
the  break  with  the  two  countries  with  which  Italy 
had  been  in  alliance  for  thirty-three  years  became  a 
matter  not  only  of  honesty  but  of  duty  solely 
through  the  injustice  of  the  cause  for  which  they  had 
proclaimed  an  offensive  war.  It  was  not  possible 
for  Italy  to  go  to  war  to  realize  the  dream  of  uniting 
the  Italian  lands  to  the  nation,  for  she  had  entered 
the  system  of  Alliance  of  the  Central  Empires  and 
had  stayed  there  long  years  while  having  all  the 
time  Italian  territories  unjustly  subjected  to  Aus- 
tria-Hungary. The  annexation  of  the  Italian  lands 
to  the  Kingdom  of  Italy  had  to  be  the  consequence 
of  the  affirmation  of  the  principles  of  nationality, 
not  the  reason  for  going  to  war.  In  any  case,  for 
Italy,  which  had  laid  on  itself  in  the  London  Agree- 
ment the  most  absurd  limitations,  which  had  con- 


74  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

fined  its  war  aims  within  exceedingly  modest  limits, 
which  had  no  share  in  the  distribution  of  the  wealth 
of  the  conquered  countries,  which  came  out  of  the 
war  without  raw  materials  and  without  any  share 
in  Germany's  colonial  empire,  it  was  a  matter  not 
only  of  high  duty  but  of  the  greatest  utility  to  pro- 
claim and  uphold  all  those  principles  which  the  En- 
tente had  so  often  and  so  publicly  proclaimed  as  its 
war  policy  and  its  war  aims.  But  in  the  Paris  Con- 
ference Italy  hardly  counted.  Without  any  definite 
idea  of  its  own  policy,  it  followed  France  and  the 
United  States,  sometimes  it  followed  Great  Britain. 
There  wTas  no  affirmation  of  principles  at  all.  The 
country  which,  among  all  the  European  wTarring 
Powers,  had  suffered  most  severely  in  proportion  to 
its  resources  and  should  have  made  the  greatest 
effort  to  free  itself  from  the  burdens  imposed  on 
it,  took  no  part  in  the  most  important  decisions.  It 
should  be  added  that  these  were  arrived  at  between 
March  24  and  May  7,  while  the  Italian  representa- 
tives were  absent  from  Paris  or  had  returned  there 
humiliated  without  having  been  recalled. 

After  interminable  discussions  which  decided  very 
little,  especially  with  regard  to  the  League  of  Na- 
tions which  arose  before  the  nations  were  consti- 
tuted and  could  live,  real  vital  questions  were 
tackled,  as  is  seen  from  the  report  of  the  Confer- 
ence, on  March  24,  and  it  is  a  fact  that  between  that 
date  and  May  7  the  whole  treaty  was  put  in  shape : 
territorial  questions,  financial  questions,  economic 
questions,  colonial  questions.    Now,  at  that  very  mo- 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         75 

ment,  on  account  of  the  question  of  Fiume  and 
Fiume  alone,  for  some  inscrutable  reason  the  Italian 
delegates  thought  good  to  retire  from  the  Confer- 
ence, to  which  they  returned  later  without  being  in- 
vited, and  during  that  time  all  the  demonstrations 
against  President  Wilson  took  place  in  Italy,  not 
without  some  grave  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the 
government.  Italy  received  least  consideration  in 
the  peace  treaties  among  all  the  conquering  coun- 
tries.   It  was  practically  put  on  one  side. 

It  has  to  be  noted  that  both  in  the  armistice  and 
in  the  peace  treaty  the  most  serious  decisions  were 
arrived  at  almost  incidentally;  moreover  they  were 
always  vitiated  by  slight  concessions  apparently  of 
no  importance.  On  November  2,  1918,  when  the 
representatives  of  the  different  nations  met  at  Paris 
to  fix  the  terms  of  armistice,  M.  Tardieu  relates,  the 
question  of  reparation  for  damages  was  decided 
quite  incidentally.  It  is  worth  while  reproducing 
what  he  says  in  his  book,  taken  from  the  official 
report : 

M.  Clemenceau:  I  would  like  to  return  now  to  the 
question  of  reparations  for  damages.  It  would  not  be 
understood  with  us  in  France  if  we  did  not  insert  a  clause 
in  the  Armistice  to  this  effect.  All  I  am  asking  for  is  the 
addition  of  three  words,  ' '  Reparations  for  damages ' '  with- 
out further  comment. 

The  following  discussion  ensues. 

M.  Hymans  :    Would  that  be  a  condition  of  armistice  T 

M.  Sonnino  :    It  is  rather  a  condition  of  peace. 


76  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

M.  Bonar  Law  :  It  is  useless  to  insert  in  the  conditions 
of  armistice  a  clause  that  can  not  be  rapidly  fulfilled. 

M.  Clemenceau  :  I  only  want  to  lay  down  the  principle. 
You  must  not  forget  that  the  French  people  is  one  of  those 
which  have  suffered  most.  They  would  not  understand  if 
we  did  not  make  some  allusion  to  this  matter. 

M.  Lloyd  George:  If  you  are  going  to  deal  with  the 
reparations  for  damages  on  land,  you  must  also  mention 
the  question  of  reparations  for  the  ships  sunk. 

M.  Clemenceau  :  That  is  all  covered  by  my  three  words, 
" Reparations  for  damages."  I  beg  the  Council  to  under- 
stand the  feeling  of  the  French  people. 

M.  Vessitch  :    And  of  the  Serbian.  .  .  . 

M.  Hymans:    And  of  the  Belgian.  .  .  . 

M.  House:  As  this  is  a  matter  of  importance  to  all,  I 
propose  the  adoption  of  M.  Clemenceau 's  addition. 

M.  Bonar  Law  :  It  is  already  mentioned  in  our  letter  to 
President  Wilson.    It  is  useless  to  repeat  it. 

M.  Orlando  :  I  accept  it  in  principle  although  no  men- 
tion has  been  made  of  it  in  the  conditions  of  the  Austrian 
Armistice. 

The  addition  of  * ' Reparations  for  damages"  is  then 
adopted.  M.  Klotz  suggests  that  the  addition  be  preceded 
by  the  words  "with  the  reservation  that  any  future  claims 
by  the  Allies  and  the  United  States  remain  unaffected." 
This  is  decided. 

If  I  were  at  liberty  to  publish  the  official  report 
of  the  doings  of  the  Conference  while  the  various 
peace  treaties  were  being  prepared,  as  MM.  Poin- 
care  and  Tardieu  have  published  secret  acts,  it 
would  be  seen  that  the  proceedings  were  very  much 
the  same  in  every  case.    Meanwhile  we  may  confine 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         77 

ourselves  to  an  examination  of  the  report  as  given 
by  M.  Tardieu. 

The  question  of  reparations  for  damages  was  not 
a  condition  of  the  armistice.  It  had  not  been  ac- 
cepted. Clemenceau  brings  the  question  up  again 
solely  in  deference  to  French  public  opinion.  The 
suggestion  is  to  write  in  simply  the  three  words: 
Reparations  for  damages.  It  is  true  that  these  three 
words  determine  a  policy,  and  that  there  is  no  men- 
tion of  it  in  the  claims  of  the  Entente,  in  the  four- 
teen points  of  President  Wilson,  or  in  the  armistice 
between  Italy  and  Austria-Hungary.  In  his  four- 
teen points  Wilson  confined  himself,  in  the  matter 
of  damages,  to  the  following  claims:  (1)  Recon- 
struction in  Belgium,  (2)  Reconstruction  of  French 
territory  invaded,  (3)  Reparation  for  territory  in- 
vaded in  Serbia,  Montenegro  and  Rumania.  There 
is  no  other  claim  or  statement  in  the  fourteen  points. 
On  the  other  hand  the  pronouncement, ' '  Reparations 
for  damages,"  covered,  or  came  later  to  cover,  any 
claim  for  damage  by  land  or  sea. 

The  representatives  of  Belgium,  Italy  and  Great 
Britain  remark  that  it  is  a  condition  of  peace,  not 
of  armistice.  But  Clemenceau  makes  it  a  question 
of  regard  and  consideration  for  France.  France 
would  not  understand  there  being  no  mention  of  it ; 
there  was  no  desire  to  define  anything,  only  just  to 
mention  it,  and  in  three  simple  words.  "I  ask  you," 
says  Clemenceau,  "to  put  yourselves  into  the  spirit 
of  the  people  of  France."  At  once  the  British  repre- 
sentative notes  the  necessity  of  a  clear  statement 


78  THE  WRECK  OP  EUROPE 

regarding  reparations  for  losses  at  sea  through  sub- 
marines and  mines;  and  all,  the  Serbian,  the  Belgian 
and,  last  of  all,  the  Italian,  at  once  call  attention  to 
their  own  damages.  Mr.  House,  not  realizing  the 
wide  and  serious  nature  of  the  claim,  says  that  it  is 
an  important  question  for  all,  while  America  had 
already  stated,  in  the  words  of  the  president  of  the 
republic,  that  it  renounced  all  indemnity  of  any 
nature  whatsoever. 

So  was  established,  quite  incidentally,  the  princi- 
ple of  indemnity  for  damages  which  gave  the  treaty 
a  complete  turn  away  from  the  spirit  of  the  pro- 
nouncements by  the  Entente  and  the  United  States. 
Equally  incidentally  were  established  all  the  declara- 
tions in  the  treaty,  the  purpose  of  which  is  not  easy 
to  understand  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  seen  in  the 
economic  results  which  may  accrue. 

Article  231  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  states  that 
the  Allied  and  Associated  Governments  affirm,  and 
Germany  accepts,  the  responsibility  of  Germany  and 
her  Allies  for  causing  all  the  loss  and  damage  to 
which  the  Allied  and  Associated  Governments  and 
their  peoples  have  been  subjected  as  a  consequence 
of  the  war  imposed  on  them  by  the  aggression  of 
Germany  and  her  allies. 

Article  177  of  the  Treaty  of  Saint-Germain-en- 
Laye  states  in  the  same  way  that  the  Allied  and  As- 
sociated Governments  affirm,  and  Austria-Hungary 
accepts,  the  responsibility  of  Austria  and  her  allies, 
etc. 

This  article  is  common  to  all  the  treaties,  and  it 


TREATIES—ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         79 

would  have  no  more  than  historic  and  philosophic 
interest  if  it  were  not  followed  by  another  article  in 
which  the  Allied  and  Associated  Governments  recog- 
nize that  the  resources  of  Germany  (and  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  etc.,)  are  not  adequate,  after  taking  into 
account  permanent  diminutions  of  such  resources 
which  will  result  from  other  provisions  of  the  pres- 
ent treaty,  to  make  complete  reparation  for  all  such 
loss  and  damage.  The  Allied  and  Associated  Gov- 
ernments, however,  require,  and  the  conquered  state 
undertakes,  that  she  will  make  compensation  for  all 
damage  done  to  the  civilian  population  of  the  Allied 
and  Associated  Powers  and  to  their  property  during 
the  period  of  the  belligerency  of  each  as  an  Allied 
or  Associated  Power  by  such  aggression  by  land,  by 
sea  and  from  the  air,  and  in  general  all  damage  as 
defined  in  the  treaty,  comprising  many  of  the  bur- 
dens of  war  (war  pensions  and  compensations  to  sol- 
diers and  their  families,  cost  of  assistance  to  fam- 
ilies of  those  mobilized  during  the  war,  etc.). 

There  is  nothing  more  useless,  indeed  more  stupid, 
than  to  take  your  enemy  by  the  throat  after  you 
have  beaten  him  and  force  him  to  declare  that  all 
the  wrong  was  on  his  side.  The  declaration  is  of 
no  use  whatever,  either  to  the  conqueror,  because 
no  importance  can  be  attributed  to  an  admission 
extorted  by  force;  or  to  the  conquered,  because  he 
knows  that  there  is  no  moral  significance  in  being 
forced  to  state  what  one  does  not  believe,  or  for 
third  parties,  because  they  are  well  aware  of  the 
circumstances    under    which   the    declaration    was 


80  THE  WRE(  JK  OF  EUROPE 

made.  It  is  possible  that  President  Wilson  wanted 
to  establish  a  moral  reason — I  do  not  like  to  say  a 
moral  alibi — for  accepting,  as  he  was  constrained  by 
necessity  to  accept,  all  those  conditions  that  were  the 
negation  of  what  he  had  solemnly  laid  down,  the  mor- 
al pledge  of  his  people,  of  the  American  democracy. 

Germany  and  the  conquered  countries  have  ac- 
cepted the  conditions  imposed  on  them  with  the 
reserve  that  they  feel  that  they  are  not  bound  by 
them,  even  morally,  in  the  future.  The  future  will 
pour  ridicule  on  this  new  form  of  treaty  which  en- 
deavors to  justify  excessive  and  absurd  demands, 
which  will  have  the  effect  of  destroying  the  enemy 
rather  than  of  obtaining  any  sure  benefit,  by  using 
a  forced  declaration  which  has  no  value  at  all. 

I  have  always  detested  German  imperialism,  and 
also  the  phases  of  exaggerated  nationalism  which 
have  grown  up  in  every  country  after  the  war  and 
have  been  eliminated  one  after  the  other  through  the 
simple  fact  of  their  being  common  to  all  countries, 
but  only  after  having  brought  the  greatest  possible 
harm  to  all  the  peoples,  and  I  can  not  say  that  Ger- 
many and  her  allies  were  solely  responsible  for  the 
war  which  devastated  Europe  and  threw  a  dark 
shadow  over  the  life  of  the  whole  world.  That  state- 
ment, which  we  all  made  during  the  war,  was  a 
weapon  to  be  used  at  the  time;  now  that  the  war  is 
over,  it  can  not  be  looked  on  as  a  serious  argument. 

An  honest  and  thorough  examination  of  all  the 
diplomatic  documents,  all  the  agreements  and  rela- 
tions   of    pre-war    days,    compels    me    to    declare 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         81 

solemnly  that  the  responsibility  for  the  war  does  not 
lie  solely  on  the  defeated  countries;  that  Germany 
may  have  desired  war  and  prepared  for  it  under  the 
influence  of  powerful  industrial  interests,  metal- 
lurgies for  instance,  responsible  for  the  extreme 
views  of  newspapers  and  other  publications,  but  still 
all  the  warring  countries  have  their  share  of  respon- 
sibility in  differing  degree.  It  can  not  be  said  that 
there  existed  in  Europe  two  groups  with  a  moral 
conception  differing  to  the  point  of  complete  con- 
trast; on  one  side,  Germany,  Austria-Hungary, 
Turkey  and  Bulgaria,  responsible  for  the  war,  which 
they  imposed  by  their  aggression ;  on  the  other,  the 
peaceful  peoples  who  were  desirous  only  of  carrying 
on  their  development  in  peace.  It  is  not  true  that 
there  were  ranged  on  the  one  side  the  despotic  na- 
tions and  that  on  the  other  were  to  be  found  all  the 
free  and  independent  peoples.  By  the  side  of  Eng- 
land, France,  Italy  and  the  United  States  there  was 
Russia,  which  must  bear,  if  not  the  greatest,  a  very 
great  responsibility  for  what  happened.  Nor  is  it 
true  that  armament  expenses  in  the  ten  years  pre- 
ceding the  war  were  greater  in  the  Central  Empires, 
or,  to  put  it  better,  in  the  states  forming  the  Triple 
Alliance,  than  in  the  countries  which  later  formed 
the  European  Entente. 

It  is  not  true  that  only  in  the  case  of  Germany 
were  the  war  aims  imperialist,  and  that  the  Entente 
countries  came  in  without  desire  of  conquest.  Put- 
ting aside  for  the  moment  what  one  sees  in  the 
treaties  which  have  followed  the  war,  it  is  worth 


82  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

while  considering  what  would  have  happened  if  Rus- 
sia had  won  the  war  instead  of  being  torn  to  pieces 
before  victory  came.  Russia  would  have  had  all  the 
Poland  of  the  eighteenth  century  (with  the  appar- 
ent autonomy  promised  by  the  czar),  nearly  all  Tur- 
key in  Europe,  Constantinople,  and  a  great  part  of 
Asia  Minor.  Russia,  with  already  the  greatest 
existing  land  empire  and  at  least  half  the  population 
not  Russian,  would  have  gained  fresh  territories 
with  fresh  non-Russian  populations,  putting  the 
Mediterranean  peoples,  and  above  all  Italy,  in  a  very 
difficult  situation  indeed. 

It  can  not  be  said  that  in  the  ten  years  preceding 
the  war  Russia  did  not  do  as  much  as  Germany  to 
bring  unrest  into  Europe.  It  was  on  account  of 
Russia  that  the  Serbian  Government  was  a  perpetual 
cause  of  disturbance,  a  perpetual  threat  to  Aus- 
tria-Hungary. The  unending  strife  in  the  Balkans 
was  caused  by  Russia  in  no  less  degree  than  by  Aus- 
tria-Hungary, and  all  the  great  European  nations 
shared,  with  opposing  views,  in  the  policy  of  East- 
ern expansion. 

The  judgment  of  peoples  and  of  events,  given  the 
uncertainty  of  policy  as  expressed  in  parliament  and 
newspapers,  is  variable  to  the  last  degree.  It  will 
be  enough  to  recall  the  varying  judgment  upon  Ser- 
bia during  the  last  ten  years  in  the  Press  of  Great 
Britain,  France  and  Italy :  the  people  of  Serbia  have 
been  described  as  criminals  and  heroes,  assassins 
and  martyrs.  No  one  would  have  anything  to  do 
with  Serbia ;  later  Serbia  was  raised  to  the  skies. 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         83 

The  documents  published  by  Kautsky  and  by  other 
authors  and  political  writers  in  Germany  and  in  Hol- 
land, and  similar  publications  issued  in  neutral  coun- 
tries, and  those  revealed  from  time  to  time  by  the 
Moscow  Government  prove  that  the  preparation  for 
and  the  driving  toward  war  was  not  only  on  the  part 
of  the  Central  Empires,  but  also,  and  in  no  less  de- 
gree, on  the  part  of  the  other  states.  One  point  will 
always  remain  inexplicable :  why  Russia  should  have 
taken  the  superlatively  serious  step  of  general  mo- 
bilization, which  could  not  be  and  was  not  a  simple 
measure  of  precaution.  It  is  beyond  doubt  that  the 
Russian  mobilization  preceded  even  that  of  Austria. 
After  a  close  examination  of  events,  after  the  bitter 
feeling  of  war  had  passed,  in  his  speech  of  Decem- 
ber 23,  1920,  Lloyd  George  said  justly  that  the  war 
broke  out  without  any  government  having  really  de- 
sired it ;  all,  in  one  way  or  another,  slithered  into  it, 
stumbling  and  tripping. 

There  were  three  monarchies  in  Europe,  the  Rus- 
sian, German,  and  Austro-Hungarian  Empires,  and 
the  fact  that  they  were  divided  into  two  groups 
necessarily  led  to  war.  It  was  inevitable  sooner  or 
later.  Russia  was  the  greatest  danger,  the  greatest 
threat  to  Europe;  what  happened  had  to  happen 
under  one  form  or  another.  The  crazy  giant  was 
under  the  charge  of  one  man  without  intelligence 
and  a  band  of  men,  the  men  of  the  old  regime,  largely 
without  scruples. 

Each  country  of  Europe  has  its  share  of  respon- 
sibility, Italy  not  excluded.    It  is  difficult  to  explain 


84  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

why  Italy  wont  to  Tripoli  in  the  way  in  which  she 
did  in  1911,  bringing  about  the  Italo-Turkish  War, 
which  brought  about  the  two  Balkan  Wars  and  the 
policy  of  adventure  of  Serbia,  which  was  the  inci- 
dent though  not  the  cause  of  the  European  War. 

The  Libyan  adventure,  considered  now  in  the 
serene  light  of  reason,  can  not  be  looked  on  as  any- 
thing but  an  aberration.  Libya  is  an  immense  box 
of  sand  which  never  had  any  value,  nor  has  it  now. 
Tripolitania,  Cyrenaica  and  Fezzan  cover  more  than 
one  million  one  hundred  thousand  square  kilometers 
and  have  less  than  nine  hundred  thousand  inhabit- 
ants, of  whom  even  now,  after  ten  years,  less  than 
a  third  are  under  the  effective  control  of  Italy. 
With  the  war  and  expenses  of  occupation,  Libya  has 
cost  Italy  about  seven  billion  lire,  and  for  a  long 
time  yet  it  will  be  on  the  debit  side  in  the  life  of  the 
nation.  With  the  same  number  of  billions,  most  of 
which  were  spent  before  the  European  War,  Italy 
could  have  put  in  order  and  utilized  her  immense 
patrimony  of  water-power  and  to-day  would  be  free 
from  anxiety  about  the  coal  problem  by  which  it  is 
actually  enslaved.  The  true  policy  of  the  nation 
was  to  gain  economic  independence,  not  a  barren 
waste.  Ignorant  people  spoke  of  Libya  in  Italy  as 
a  promised  land ;  in  one  official  speech  the  king  was 
even  made  to  say  that  Libya  could  absorb  part  of 
Italian  emigration.  That  was  just  a  phenomenon  of 
madness,  for  Libya  has  no  value  at  all  from  the  agri- 
cultural, commercial  or  military  point  of  view.  It 
may  pay  its  way  one  day,  but  only  if  all  expenses  are 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         85 

cut  down  and  the  administrative  system  is  com- 
pletely changed.  It  may  be  that,  if  only  from  a  feel- 
ing of  duty  toward  the  inhabitants,  Italy  can  not 
abandon  Libya  now  that  she  has  taken  it,  but  the 
question  will  always  be  asked  why  she  did  take  it, 
why  she  took  it  by  violence  when  a  series  of  con- 
cessions could  have  been  obtained  without  difficulty 
from  the  Turkish  Government. 

The  Libyan  enterprise,  undertaken  on  an  impulse, 
against  the  opinion  of  Italy's  allies,  Austria  and 
Germany,  against  the  wish  of  England  and  France, 
is  a  very  serious  political  responsibility  for  Italy. 

The  European  War  was  the  consequence  of  a  long 
series  of  movements,  aspirations,  agitations.  It  can 
not  be  denied,  and  it  is  recognized  by  clear- thinking 
men  like  Lloyd  George,  that  France  and  England  too 
have  by  their  actions  taken  on  themselves  their  part 
in  the  serious  responsibility.  To  say  that  in  the  past 
they  had  never  thought  of  war  is  to  say  a  thing  not 
true.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  all  the  diplomatic 
documents  published  before  and  during  the  war 
show  in  Russia,  above  all,  a  situation  which  inevit- 
ably would  soon  lead  to  war.  In  the  Balkans,  espec- 
ially in  Serbia,  Russia  was  pursuing  a  cynical  and 
shameless  policy  of  corruption,  nourishing  and  ex- 
citing every  ferment  of  revolt  against  Austria-Hun- 
gary. Russian  policy  in  Serbia  was  really  criminal. 
Every  one  in  Germany  was  convinced  that  Russia 
was  preparing  for  war.  The  czar's  pacificist  ideas 
were  of  no  importance  whatever.  In  absolute  mon- 
archies it  is  an  illusion  to  think  that  the  sovereign, 


86  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

though  apparently  an  autocrat,  acts  in  accordance 
with  his  own  views.  His  views  are  almost  invariably 
those  of  the  people  round  him;  he  does  not  even 
receive  news  in  its  true  form,  but  in  the  form  given 
it  by  officials.  Russia  was  an  unwieldly  giant  who 
had  shown  signs  of  madness  long  before  the  actual 
revolution.  It  is  impossible  that  a  collective  mad- 
ness such  as  that  which  has  had  possession  of  Rus- 
sia* for  three  years  could  be  produced  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment;  the  regime  of  autocracy  contained  in 
itself  the  germs  of  Bolshevism  and  violence.  Bol- 
shevism can  not  properly  be  judged  by  Western  no- 
tions; it  is  not  a  revolutionary  movement  of  the 
people;  it  is,  as  I  have  said  before,  the  religious 
fanaticism  of  the  Eastern  Orthodox  grafted  upon 
the  trunk  of  czarist  despotism.  Bolshevism,  cen- 
tralizing and  bureaucratic,  follows  the  same  lines 
as  the  imperial  policy  of  almost  every  czar. 

Undoubtedly  the  greatest  responsibility  for  the 
war  lies  on  Germany.  If  it  has  not  to  bear  all  the 
responsibility,  as  the  treaties  claim,  it  has  to  bear 
the  largest  share ;  and  the  responsibility  lies,  rather 
than  on  the  shoulders  of  the  emperor  and  the  quite 
ordinary  men  who  surrounded  him,  on  those  of  the 
military  caste  and  some  great  industrial  groups. 
The  crazy  writings  of  General  von  Bernhardi  and 
other  disgusting  publications  of  the  same  sort  ex- 
pressed, more  than  just  theoretical  views,  the  real 
hopes  and  tendencies  of  the  whole  military  caste.  It 
is  true  enough  that  there  existed  in  Germany  a  real 
democratic  society  under  the  control  of  the  civil 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         87 

government,  but  there  was  the  military  caste  too, 
with  privileges  in  social  life  and  a  special  position 
in  the  life  of  the  state.  This  caste  was  educated  in 
the  conception  of  violence  as  the  means  of  power 
and  grandeur.  When  a  country  has  allowed  the 
military  and  social  theories  of  General  von  Bern- 
hardi  and  the  senselessly  criminal  pronouncements 
of  the  Emperor  William  II  to  prevail  for  so  many 
years,  it  has  put  the  most  formidable  weapons  pos- 
sible into  the  hands  of  its  enemies.  The  people  who 
governed  Germany  for  so  long  have  no  right  to  com- 
plain now  of  the  conditions  in  which  their  country 
is  placed.  But  the  great  German  people,  hard-work- 
ing and  persevering,  has  full  right  to  look  on  such 
conditions  as  the  negation  of  justice.  The  head  of 
a  European  state,  a  man  of  the  clearest  view  and 
calmest  judgment,  speaking  to  me  of  the  Emperor 
William,  of  whose  character  and  intellect  he  thought 
very  little,  expressed  the  view  that  the  emperor  did 
not  want  war,  but  that  he  would  not  avoid  it  when 
he  had  the  chance. 

The  truth  is  that  Germany  troubled  itself  very 
little  about  France.  Kinderlen  Wachter,  the  most 
intelligent  of  the  German  foreign  ministers,  and  per- 
haps the  one  most  opposed  to  the  war,  when  he  out- 
lined to  me  the  situation  as  it  was  ten  years  ago, 
showed  no  anxiety  at  all  except  in  regard  to  Russia. 
Russia  might  make  war,  and  it  was  necessary  to  be 
ready  or  to  see  that  it  came  about  at  a  moment  when 
victory  was  certain  if  conditions  did  not  change. 
Germany  had  no  reason  at  all  for  making  war  on 


88  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

France  from  the  time  that  it  had  got  well  ahead  of 
that  country  in  industry,  commerce  and  navigation. 
It  is  true  that  there  were  a  certain  number  of  un- 
balanced people  in  the  metal  industry  who  talked 
complacently  of  French  iron  and  stirred  up  the  yel- 
low Press,  just  as  in  France  to-day  there  are  many 
industrials  with  their  eyes  fixed  on  German  coal 
which  they  want  to  seize  as  far  as  possible.  But  the 
intellectuals,  the  politicians,  even  military  circles, 
had  no  anxiety  at  all  except  with  regard  to  Eussia. 

There  were  mistaken  views  in  German  policy,  no 
doubt,  but  at  the  same  time  there  was  real  anxiety 
about  her  national  existence.  With  a  huge  popula- 
tion and  limited  resources,  with  few  colonies,  owing 
to  her  late  arrival  in  the  competition  for  them,  Ger- 
many looked  on  the  never-ceasing  desire  of  Russia 
for  Constantinople  as  the  ruin  of  her  policy  of  ex- 
pansion in  the  East. 

And  in  actual  fact  there  was  but  one  way  by  which 
the  three  great  empires,  which  in  population  and 
extension  of  territory  dominated  the  greater  part 
of  Europe,  could  avoid  war,  and  that  was  to  join  in 
alliance  among  themselves  or  at  least  not  to  enter 
other  alliances.  The  three  great  empires  divided 
themselves  into  two  allied  groups.  From  that  mo- 
ment, given  the  fact  that  in  each  of  them  the  mili- 
tary caste  held  power,  that  the  principal  decisions 
lay  in  the  hands  of  a  few  men  not  responsible  to  par- 
liament; given  the  fact  that  Russia,  faithful  to  her 
traditional  policy,  aimed  to  draw  into  her  political 
orbit  all  the  Slav  peoples  right  down  to  the  Adriatic 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         89 

and  the  ^Egean,  and  that  Austria  was  leaning  toward 
the  creation  of  a  third  Slav  monarchy  in  the  dual 
kingdom,  it  was  inevitable  that  sooner  or  later  the 
violence,  intrigue  and  corruption  with  which  we  are 
familiar  should  culminate  in  open  conflict.  Bis- 
marck always  saw  that  putting  Russia  and  Germany 
up  against  each  other  meant  war. 

Peoples,  like  individuals,  are  far  from  represent- 
ing with  anything  approaching  completeness  such 
social  conceptions  as  we  call  violence  and  right,  hon- 
esty and  bad  faith,  justice  and  injustice ;  each  people 
has  its  different  characteristics,  but  no  one  people 
represents  good,  or  another  bad,  no  one  represents 
brutality,  or  another  civilization.  All  these  mean- 
ingless phrases  were  brought  out  during  the  war, 
according  to  which,  as  was  said  by  one  of  the  prime 
ministers  of  the  Entente,  the  war  was  the  decisive 
struggle  between  the  forces  of  autocracy  and  liberty, 
between  the  dark  powers  of  evil  and  violence  and 
the  radiant  powers  of  good  and  right.  To-day  all 
this  causes  nothing  but  a  smile.  Such  things  are 
just  speechifying,  and  banal  at  that.  Perhaps  they 
were  a  necessity  of  war-time  which  might  well  be 
made  use  of;  when  you  are  fighting  for  your  very 
life  you  use  every  means  you  have;  when  you  are 
in  imminent  danger  you  do  not  choose  your  weapons, 
you  use  everything  to  hand.  All  the  war  propaganda 
against  the  German  Empires,  recounting,  sometimes 
exaggerating,  all  the  crimes  of  the  enemy,  claiming 
that  all  the  guilt  was  on  the  side  of  Germany,  de- 
scribing German  atrocities  as  a  habit,  almost  a  char- 


90  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

aoteristio  of  the  German  people,  deriding  German 
culture  as  a  species  of  liquid  in  which  were  bred  the 
microbes  of  moral  madness — all  this  was  legitimate, 
perhaps  necessary,  during  the  wax.   The  reply  to  the 

asphyxiating  gas  of  the  enemy  was  not  only  the 
same  gas,  but  a  propaganda  calculated  to  do  more 
damage,  and  which  did  as  much  damage  as  tanks  and 
blockade.  I  myself,  as  minister  in  a  War  Cabinet, 
spoke  this  language.  I  accused  Germany  of  being  re- 
sponsible for  the  slaughter  and  having  planned  and 
willed  it.  But,  when  war  is  over,  nothing  should  be 
put  into  a  peace  treaty  except  such  things  as  will 
lead  to  a  lasting  peace,  or  the  most  lasting  peace 
compatible  with  our  degree  of  civilization. 

On  January  22,  1917,  President  Wilson  explained 
the  reasons  why  he  made  the  proposal  to  put  an  end 
to  the  war ;  he  said  in  the  American  Senate  that  the 
greatest  danger  lay  in  a  peace  imposed  by  con- 
querors after  victory.  At  that  time  it  was  said  that 
there  must  be  neither  conquerors  nor  conquered. 
A  peace  imposed  after  victory  wTould  be  the  cause 
of  so  much  humiliation  and  such  intolerable  sacri- 
fices for  the  conquered  side,  it  wrould  be  so  severe, 
it  would  give  rise  to  so  much  bitter  feeling  that  it 
would  not  be  a  lasting  peace,  but  one  founded  on 
shifting  sand.  It  is  strange  that  President  Wilson 
who,  while  he  was  in  America,  clearly  saw  these 
things,  should  on  his  arrival  in  Europe  have  little 
by  little  abandoned  all  resistance  and  have  assumed 
the  terrible  responsibility  for  a  peace  which  the 
American  people  have  not  been  able  to  accept. 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         91 

In  the  spring  of  1919,  just  before  the  most  serious 
decisions  were  to  be  taken,  Lloyd  George  put  before 
the  conference  a  memorandum  entitled  "Some  con- 
siderations for  the  Peace  Conference  before  they 
finally  draft  their  terms,'9 

With  his  marvelously  quick  insight,  after  having 
listened  to  the  speeches  of  which  force  was  the  lead- 
ing motive  (the  tendency  round  him  was  not  to  estab- 
lish a  lasting  peace  but  to  vivisect  Germany),  Lloyd 
George  saw  that  it  was  not  a  true  peace  that  was 
being  prepared. 

On  March  25,  1919,  Lloyd  George  presented  the 
following  memorandum  to  the  Conference : 


When  nations  are  exhausted  by  wars  in  which  they  have 
pnt  forth  all  their  strength  and  which  leave  them  tired, 
bleeding  and  broken,  it  is  not  difficult  to  patch  np  a  peace 
that  may  last  until  the  generation  which  experienced  the 
horrors  of  the  war  has  passed  away.  Pictures  of  heroism 
and  triumph  only  tempt  those  who  know  nothing  of  the 
sufferings  and  terrors  of  war.  It  is  therefore  compara- 
tively easy  to  patch  up  a  peace  which  will  last  for  thirty 
years. 

What  is  difficult,  however,  is  to  draw  up  a  peace  which 
will  not  provoke  a  fresh  struggle  when  those  who  have 
had  practical  experience  of  what  war  means  have  passed 
away.  History  has  proved  that  a  peace  which  has  been 
hailed  by  a  victorious  nation  as  a  triumph  of  diplomatic 
skill  and  statesmanship,  even  of  moderation,  in  the  long 
run  has  proved  itself  to  be  short-sighted  and  charged  with 


92  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

danger  to  the  victor.  The  peaee  of  1871  was  believed  by 
Germany  to  insure  not  only  her  security  but  her  permanent 
supremacy.  The  Pacts  have  shown  exactly  the  contrary. 
France  itself  has  demonstrated  that  those  who  say  you 
can  make  Germany  so  feeble  that  she  will  never  be  able  to 
hit  back  are  utterly  wrong.  Year  by  year  France  became 
numerically  weaker  in  comparison  with  her  victorious 
neighbor,  but  in  reality  she  became  ever  more  powerful. 
She  kept  watch  on  Europe;  she  made  alliance  with  those 
whom  Germany  had  wronged  or  menaced;  she  never  ceased 
to  warn  the  world  of  its  danger,  and  ultimately  she  was 
able  to  secure  the  overthrow  of  the  far  mightier  power 
which  had  trampled  so  brutally  upon  her.  You  may  strip 
Germany  of  her  colonies,  reduce  her  armaments  to  a  mere 
police  force  and  her  navy  to  that  of  a  fifth-rate  power; 
all  the  same,  in  the  end,  if  she  feels  that  she  has  been 
unjustly  treated  in  the  peace  of  1919,  she  will  find  means 
of  exacting  retribution  from  her  conquerors.  The  impres- 
sion, the  deep  impression,  made  upon  the  human  heart  by 
four  years  of  unexampled  slaughter  will  disappear  with  the 
hearts  upon  which  it  has  been  marked  by  the  terrible  sword 
of  the  Great  War.  The  maintenance  of  peace  will  then 
depend  upon  there  being  no  causes  of  exasperation  con- 
stantly stirring  up  the  spirit  of  patriotism,  of  justice  or  of 
fair  play  to  achieve  redress.  Our  terms  may  be  severe, 
they  may  be  stern  and  even  ruthless,  but  at  the  same  time 
they  can  be  so  just  that  the  country  on  which  they  are  im- 
posed will  feel  in  its  heart  that  it  has  no  right  to  complain. 
But  injustice,  arrogance,  displayed  in  the  hour  of  triumph, 
will  never  be  forgotten  nor  forgiven. 

For  these  reasons  I  am,  therefore,  strongly  averse  to 
transferring  more  Germans  from  German  rule  to  the  rule 
of  some  other  nation  than  can  possibly  be  helped.     I  can 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         93 

not  conceive  any  greater  cause  of  future  war  than  that 
the  German  people,  who  have  certainly  proved  themselves 
one  of  the  most  vigorous  and  powerful  races  in  the  world, 
should  be  surrounded  by  a  number  of  small  states,  many 
of  them  consisting  of  people  who  have  never  previously  set 
up  a  stable  government  for  themselves,  but  each  of  them 
containing  large  masses  of  Germans  clamoring  for  reunion 
with  their  native  land.  The  proposal  of  the  Polish  Com- 
mission that  we  should  place  2,100,000  Germans  under  the 
control  of  a  people  of  a  different  religion  and  which  has 
never  proved  its  capacity  for  stable  self-government 
throughout  its  history,  must,  in  my  judgment,  lead  sooner 
or  later  to  a  new  war  in  the  east  of  Europe.  "What  I  have 
said  about  the  Germans  is  equally  true  about  the  Magyars. 
There  will  never  be  peace  in  Southeastern  Europe  if  every 
little  state  now  coming  into  being  is  to  have  a  large  Magyar 
Irredenta  within  its  borders. 

I  would  therefore  take  as  a  guiding  principle  of  the 
peace  that  as  far  as  is  humanly  possible  the  different  races 
should  be  allocated  to  their  motherlands,  and  that  this 
human  criterion  should  have  precedence  over  considera- 
tions of  strategy  or  economics  or  communications,  which 
can  usually  be  adjusted  by  other  means. 

Secondly,  I  would  say  that  the  duration  for  the  pay- 
ments of  reparation  ought  to  disappear  if  possible  with 
the  generation  which  made  the  war. 

But  there  is  a  consideration  in  favor  of  a  long-sighted 
peace  which  influences  me  even  more  than  the  desire  to 
leave  no  causes  justifying  a  fresh  outbreak  thirty  years 
hence.  There  is  one  element  in  the  present  condition  of 
nations  which  differentiates  it  from  the  situation  as  it  was 
in  1815.  In  the  Napoleonic  Wars  the  countries  were 
equally  exhausted,  but  the  revolutionary  spirit  had  spent 


94  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

its  force  in  the  country  of  its  birth,  and  Germany  had 
satisfied  the  legitimate  popular  demands  for  the  time  being 
by  a  series  of  economic  changes  which  were  inspired  by 
courage,  foresight  and  high  statesmanship.  Even  in  Rus- 
sia the  czar  had  effected  great  reforms  which  were  proba- 
bly at  that  time  even  too  advanced  for  the  half-savage 
population.  The  situation  is  very  different  now.  The 
revolution  is  still  in  its  infancy.  The  extreme  figures  of 
the  Terror  are  still  in  command  in  Russia.  The  whole 
of  Europe  is  filled  with  the  spirit  of  revolution.  There  is 
a  deep  sense  not  only  of  discontent,  but  of  anger  and 
revolt  among  the  workmen  against  pre-war  conditions.  The 
whole  existing  order,  in  its  political,  social  and  economic 
aspects  is  questioned  by  the  masses  of  the  population  from 
one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other.  In  some  countries,  like 
Germany  and  Russia,  the  unrest  takes  the  form  of  open 
rebellion,  in  others,  like  France,  Great  Britain  and  Italy, 
it  takes  the  shape  of  strikes  and  of  general  disinclina- 
tion to  settle  down  to  work,  symptoms  which  are  just  as 
much  concerned  with  the  desire  for  political  and  social 
change  as  with  wage  demands. 

Much  of  this  unrest  is  healthy.  We  shall  never  make 
a  lasting  peace  by  attempting  to  restore  the  conditions  of 
1914.  But  there  is  a  danger  that  we  may  throw  the  masses 
of  the  population  throughout  Europe  into  the  arms  of  the 
extremists,  whose  only  idea  for  regenerating  mankind  is  to 
destroy  utterly  the  whole  existing  fabric  of  society.  These 
men  have  triumphed  in  Russia.  They  have  done  so  at  a 
terrible  price.  Hundreds  and  thousands  of  the  population 
have  perished.  The  railways,  the  roads,  the  towns,  the 
whole  structural  organization  of  Russia  has  been  almost 
destroyed,  but  somehow  or  other  they  seem  to  have  managed 
to  keep  their  hold  upon  the  masses  of  the  Russian  people, 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         95 

and  what  is  much  more  significant,  they  have  succeeded  in 
creating  a  large  army  which  is  apparently  well  directed 
and  well  disciplined,  and  is,  as  to  a  great  part  of  it,  pre- 
pared to  die  for  its  ideals.  In  another  year  Russia,  in- 
spired by  a  new  enthusiasm,  may  have  recovered  from  her 
passion  for  peace  and  have  at  her  command  the  only  army 
eager  to  fight,  because  it  is  the  only  army  that  believes 
that  it  has  any  cause  to  fight  for. 

The  greatest  danger  that  I  see  in  the  present  situation 
is  that  Germany  may  throw  in  her  lot  with  Bolshevism  and 
place  her  resources,  her  brains,  her  vast  organizing  power 
at  the  disposal  of  the  revolutionary  fanatics  whose  dream 
it  is  to  conquer  the  world  for  Bolshevism  by  force  of  arms. 
This  danger  is  no  mere  chimera.  The  present  government 
in  Germany  is  weak ;  its  authority  is  challenged ;  it  lingers 
merely  because  there  is  no  alternative  but  the  Spartacists, 
and  Germany  is  not  ready  for  Spartacism,  as  yet.  But  the 
argument  which  the  Spartacists  are  using  with  great  ef- 
fect at  this  very  time  is  that  they  alone  can  save  Germany 
from  the  intolerable  conditions  which  have  been  bequeathed 
her  by  the  war.  They  offer  to  free  the  German  people  from 
indebtedness  to  the  Allies  and  indebtedness  to  their  own 
richer  classes.  They  offer  them  complete  control  of  their 
own  affairs  and  the  prospect  of  a  new  heaven  and  earth. 
It  is  true  that  the  price  will  be  heavy.  There  will  be  two 
or  three  years  of  anarchy,  perhaps  of  bloodshed,  but  at 
the  end  the  land  will  remain,  the  people  will  remain,  the 
greater  part  of  the  houses  and  the  factories  will  remain, 
and  the  railways  and  the  roads  will  remain,  and  Germany, 
having  thrown  off  her  burdens,  will  be  able  to  make  a  fresh 
start. 

If  Germany  goes  over  to  the  Spartacists  it  is  inevitable 
that  she  would  throw  in  her  lot  with  the  Russian  Bol- 


96  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

shevists.  Once  that  happens  all  Eastern  Europe  will  be 
swept  into  the  orbit  of  the  Bolshevik  revolution,  and  within 
a  year  we  may  witness  the  spectacle  of  nearly  three  li un- 
ci red  million  people  organized  into  a  vast  red  army  under 
German  instructors  and  German  generals,  equipped  with 
German  cannon  and  German  machine  guns  and  prepared 
for  a  renewal  of  the  attack  on  Western  Europe.  This  is  a 
prospect  which  no  one  can  face  with  equanimity.  Yet  the 
news  which  came  from  Hungary  yesterday  shows  only  too 
clearly  that  this  danger  is  no  fantasy.  And  what  are  the 
reasons  alleged  for  this  decision?  They  are  mainly  the 
belief  that  large  numbers  of  Magyars  are  to  be  handed 
over  to  the  control  of  others.  If  we  are  wise,  we  shall  offer 
to  Germany  a  peace,  which,  while  just,  will  be  preferable 
for  all  sensible  men  to  the  alternative  of  Bolshevism.  I 
would  therefore  put  it  in  the  forefront  of  the  peace  that 
once  she  accepts  our  terms,  especially  reparation,  we  will 
open  to  her  the  raw  materials  and  markets  of  the  world  on 
equal  terms  with  ourselves,  and  will  do  everything  possible 
to  enable  the  German  people  to  get  upon  their  legs  again. 
We  can  not  both  cripple  her  and  expect  her  to  pay. 

Finally,  we  must  offer  terms  which  a  responsible  gov- 
ernment in  Germany  can  expect  to  be  able  to  carry  out. 
If  we  present  terms  to  Germany  which  are  unjust,  or  ex- 
cessively onerous,  no  responsible  government  will  sign 
them;  certainly  the  present  weak  administration  will  not. 
If  it  did,  I  am  told  that  it  would  be  swept  away  within 
twenty-four  hours.  Yet  if  we  can  find  nobody  in  Germany 
who  will  put  his- hand  to  a  peace  treaty,  what  will  be  the 
position?  A  large  army  of  occupation  for  an  indefinite 
period  is  out  of  the  question.  Germany  would  not  mind 
it.  A  very  large  number  of  people  in  that  country  would 
welcome  it,  as  it  would  be  the  only  hope  of  preserving 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         97 

the  existing  order  of  things.  The  objection  would  not 
come  from  Germany,  but  from  our  own  countries.  Neither 
the  British  Empire  nor  America  would  agree  to  occupy 
Germany.  France  by  itself  could  not  bear  the  burden  of 
occupation.  "We  should  therefore  be  driven  back  on  the 
policy  of  blockading  the  country.  That  would  inevitably 
mean  Spartacism  from  the  Urals  to  the  Rhine,  with  its 
inevitable  consequence  of  a  huge  red  army  attempting  to 
cross  the  Rhine.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  am  doubtful 
whether  public  opinion  would  allow  us  deliberately  to 
starve  Germany.  If  the  only  difference  between  Germany 
and  ourselves  were  between  onerous  terms  and  moderate 
terms,  I  very  much  doubt  if  public  opinion  would  tolerate 
the  deliberate  condemnation  of  millions  of  women  and  chil- 
dren to  death  by  starvation.  If  so,  the  Allies  would  have 
incurred  the  moral  defeat  of  having  attempted  to  impose 
terms  on  Germany  which  Germany  had  successfully  re- 
sisted. 

From  every  point  of  view,  therefore,  it  seems  to  me 
that  we  ought  to  endeavor  to  draw  up  a  peace  settlement 
as  if  we  were  impartial  arbiters,  forgetful  of  the  passions 
of  the  war.  This  settlement  ought  to  have  the  three  ends 
in  view. 

First  of  all  it  must  do  justice  to  the  Allies,  by  taking 
into  account  Germany's  responsibility  for  the  origin  of 
the  war,  and  for  the  way  in  which  it  was  fought. 

Secondly,  it  must  be  a  settlement  which  a  responsible 
German  Government  can  sign  in  the  belief  that  it  can 
fulfil  the  obligations  it  incurs. 

Thirdly,  it  must  be  a  settlement  which  will  contain  in 
itself  no  provocations  for  future  wars,  and  which  will  con- 
stitute an  alternative  to  Bolshevism,  because  it  will  com- 
mend itself  to  all  reasonable  opinion  as  a  fair  settlement  of 
the  European  problem. 


98  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

II 

It  is  not,  however,  enough  to  draw  up  a  just  and  far- 
sighted  peace  with  Germany.  If  we  are  to  offer  Europe 
an  alternative  to  Bolshevism  we  must  make  the  League 
of  Nations  into  something  which  will  be  both  a  safeguard 
to  those  nations  who  are  prepared  for  fair  dealing  with 
their  neighbors  and  a  menace  to  those  who  would  trespass 
on  the  rights  of  their  neighbors,  whether  they  are  imperial- 
ist empires  or  imperialist  Bolshevists.  An  essential  ele- 
ment, therefore,  in  the  peace  settlement  is  the  constitution 
of  the  League  of  Nations  as  the  effective  guardian  of  inter- 
national liberty  throughout  the  world.  If  this  is  to  happen 
the  first  thing  to  do  is  that  the  leading  members  of  the 
League  of  Nations  should  arrive  at  an  understanding  be- 
tween themselves  in  regard  to  armaments.  To  my  mind  it 
is  idle  to  endeavor  to  impose  a  permanent  limitation  of 
armaments  upon  Germany  unless  we  are  prepared  similarly 
to  impose  a  limitation  upon  ourselves.  I  recognize  that 
until  Germany  has  settled  down  and  given  practical  proof 
that  she  has  abandoned  her  imperialist  ambitions,  and 
until  Kussia  has  also  given  proof  that  she  does  not  intend 
to  embark  upon  a  military  crusade  against  her  neighbors, 
it  is  essential  that  the  leading  members  of  the  League  of 
Nations  should  maintain  considerable  forces  both  by  land 
and  sea  in  order  to  preserve  liberty  in  the  world.  But 
if  they  are  to  present  a  united  front  to  the  forces  both  of 
reaction  and  revolution,  they  must  arrive  at  such  an  agree- 
ment in  regard  to  armaments  among  themselves  as  would 
make  it  impossible  for  suspicion  to  arise  between  the  mem- 
bers of  the  League  of  Nations  in  regard  to  their  intentions 
toward  one  another.  If  the  League  is  to  do  its  work  for  the 
world  it  will  only  be  because  the  members  of  the  League 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS         99 

trust  it  themselves  and  because  there  are  no  rivalries  and 
jealousies  in  the  matter  of  armaments  between  them.  The 
first  condition  of  success  for  the  League  of  Nations  is, 
therefore,  a  firm  understanding  between  the  British  Em- 
pire and  the  United  States  of  America  and  France  and 
Italy,  that  there  will  be  no  competitive  building  up  of 
fleets  or  armies  between  them.  Unless  this  is  arrived  at 
before  the  Covenant  is  signed  the  League  of  Nations  will  be 
a  sham  and  a  mockery.  It  will  be  regarded,  and  rightly 
regarded,  as  a  proof  that  its  principal  promoters  and 
patrons  repose  no  confidence  in  its  efficacy.  But  once  the 
leading  members  of  the  League  have  made  it  clear  that  they 
have  reached  an  understanding  which  will  both  secure  to 
the  League  of  Nations  the  strength  which  is  necessary  to 
enable  it  to  protect  its  members  and  which  at  the  same 
time  will  make  misunderstanding  and  suspicion  with  regard 
to  competitive  armaments  impossible  between  them  its  fu- 
ture and  its  authority  will  be  assured.  It  will  then  be 
able  to  insure  as  an  essential  condition  of  peace  that  not 
only  Germany,  but  all  the  smaller  states  of  Europe,  under- 
take to  limit  their  armaments  and  abolish  conscription. 
If  the  small  nations  are  permitted  to  organize  and  main- 
tain conscript  armies  running  each  to  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands, boundary  wars  will  be  inevitable,  and  all  Europe 
will  be  drawn  in.  Unless  we  secure  this  universal  limita- 
tion we  shall  achieve  neither  lasting  peace  nor  the  perma- 
nent observance  of  the  limitation  of  German  armaments 
which  we  now  seek  to  impose. 

I  should  like  to  ask  why  Germany,  if  she  accepts  the 
terms  we  consider  just  and  fair,  should  not  be  admitted  to 
the  League  of  Nations,  at  any  rate  as  soon  as  she  has 
established  a  stable  and  democratic  government?  "Would 
it  not  be  an  inducement  to  her  both  to  sign  the  terms  and 


100  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

to  resist  Bolshevism?  Might  it  do1  1"'  safer  that  she  should 
be  inside  the  League  than  that  she  should  be  outside  it? 
Finally,  I  believe  thai  until  the  authority  and  effective- 
ness of  the  League  of  Nations  has  been  demonstrated,  the 
British  Empire  and  the  United  States  ought  to  give  France 
a  guarantee  against  the  possibility  of  a  new  German  ag- 
gression. France  has  special  reason  for  asking  for  such 
a  guarantee.  She  has  twice  been  attacked  and  twice  in- 
vaded by  Germany  in  half  a  century.  She  has  been  so 
attacked  because  she  has  been  the  principal  guardian  of 
liberal  and  democratic  civilization  against  Central  Euro- 
pean autocracy  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  It  is  right  that 
the  other  great  Western  democracies  should  enter  into  an 
undertaking  which  will  insure  that  they  stand  by  her 
side  in  time  to  protect  her  against  invasion  should  Ger- 
many ever  threaten  her  again,  or  until  the  League  of 
Nations  has  proved  its  capacity  to  preserve  the  peace  and 
liberty  of  the  world. 

Ill 

If,  however,  the  Peace  Conference  is  really  to  secure 
peace  and  prove  to  the  world  a  complete  plan  of  settle- 
ment which  all  reasonable  men  will  recognize  as  an  alter- 
native preferable  to  anarchy,  it  must  deal  with  the  Russian 
situation.  Bolshevik  imperialism  does  not  merely  menace 
the  states  on  Russia's  borders.  It  threatens  the  whole  of 
Asia,  and  is  as  near  to  America  as  it  is  to  France.  It  is 
idle  to  think  that  the  Peace  Conference  can  separate,  how- 
ever sound  a  peace  it  may  have  arranged  with  Germany,  if 
it  leaves  Russia  as  it  is  to-day.  I  do  not  propose,  however, 
to  complicate  the  question  of  the  peace  with  Germany  by 
introducing  a  discussion  of  the  Russian  problem.     I  men- 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       101 

tion  it  simply  in  order  to  remind  ourselves  of  the  impor- 
tance of  dealing  with  it  as  soon  as  possible. 

The  memorandum  is  followed  by  some  proposals 
entitled  "General  Lines  of  the  Peace  Conditions," 
which  would  tend  to  make  the  peace  less  severe.  It 
is  hardly  worth  while  reproducing  them.  As  in 
many  points  the  decisions  taken  were  in  the  opposite 
sense  it  is  better  not  to  go  beyond  the  general  con- 
siderations. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George 's  memorandum  is  a  secret  docu- 
ment, but  as  the  English  and  American  Press  have 
already  printed  long  passages  from  it,  it  is  prac- 
tically possible  to  give  it  in  its  entirety  without 
adding  anything  to  what  has  already  been  printed. 

M.  Tardieu  has  published  M.  Clemenceau's  reply, 
drawn  up  by  M.  Tardieu  himself  and  representing 
the  French  point  of  view: 


The  French  Government  is  in  complete  accord  with  the 
general  aim  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  note  to  make  a  lasting 
peace  and  for  that  reason  a  just  peace. 

It  does  not  believe,  on  the  other  hand,  that  this  principle, 
which  is  its  own,  really  leads  to  the  conclusions  deduced 
from  it  in  this  note. 

II 

This  note  suggests  granting  moderate  territorial  condi- 
tions to  Germany  in  Europe  in  order  not  to  leave  her  after 
the  peace  with  feelings  of  deep  resentment. 


102  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

This  method  would  be  of  value  if  the  last  war  had  merely 
been  for  Germany  an  European  war,  but  this  is  not  the 
case. 

Germany  before  the  war  was  a  great  world  power  whose 
11  future  was  on  the  water."  It  was  in  this  world  power 
that  she  took  pride.  It  is  this  world  power  that  she  will 
not  console  herself  for  having  lost. 

Now  we  have  taken  away  from  her — or  we  are  going  to 
take  away  from  her — without  being  deterred  by  the  fear 
of  her  resentment — all  her  colonies,  all  her  navy,  a  great 
part  of  her  merchant  marine  (on  account  of  Reparations), 
her  foreign  markets  in  which  she  was  supreme. 

Thus  we  are  dealing  her  the  blow  which  she  will  feel  the 
worst  and  it  is  hoped  to  soften  it  by  some  improvement  in 
territorial  terms.  This  is  a  pure  illusion,  the  remedy  is  not 
adequate  to  the  ill. 

If  for  reasons  of  general  policy,  it  is  desired  to  give  cer- 
tain satisfactions  to  Germany,  it  is  not  in  Europe  that  they 
must  be  sought.  This  kind  of  appeasement  will  be  in  vain 
so  long  as  Germany  is  cut  off  from  world  politics. 

In  order  to  appease  Germany  (if  such  is  the  desire)  we 
must  offer  her  colonial  satisfactions,  naval  satisfactions, 
satisfactions  of  commercial  expansion.  But  the  note  of 
March  26  merely  contemplates  giving  her  European  terri- 
torial satisfactions. 

Ill 

Mr.  Lloyd  George's  note  fears  that  if  the  territorial  con- 
ditions imposed  on  Germany  are  too  severe,  it  will  give 
an  impetus  to  Bolshevism.  Is  it  not  to  be  feared  that  this 
would  be  precisely  the  result  of  the  action  suggested? 

The  Conference  has  decided  to  call  to  life  a  certain 
number  of  new  states.    Can  it  without  committing  an  injus- 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       103 

tice  sacrifice  them  out  of  regard  for  Germany  by  imposing 
upon  them  inacceptable  frontiers?  If  these  peoples — 
notably  Poland  and  Bohemian — have  so  far  resisted  Bol- 
shevism, they  have  done  so  by  the  development  of  national 
spirit.  If  we  do  violence  to  this  sentiment,  they  will  be- 
come the  prey  of  Bolshevism  and  the  only  barrier  now  ex- 
isting will  be  broken  down. 

The  result  will  be  either  a  Confederation  of  Central  and 
Eastern  Europe  under  the  leadership  of  Bolshevist  Ger- 
many or  the  enslavement  of  this  same  vast  territory  by  Ger- 
many swung  back  to  reaction  after  a  period  of  general 
anarchy.    In  either  case,  the  Allies  will  have  lost  the  war. 

The  policy  of  the  French  Government  is  on  the  contrary 
to  give  strong  support  to  these  young  nations  with  the  help 
of  all  that  is  liberal  in  Europe  and  not  to  seek  at  their 
expense  to  attenuate — which  besides  would  be  useless — the 
colonial,  naval  and  commercial  disaster  which  the  peace 
inflicts  on  Germany. 

If  in  order  to  give  to  these  young  nations  frontiers 
which  are  essential  to  their  national  life,  it  is  necessary  to 
transfer  to  their  sovereignty  Germans,  the  sons  of  those 
who  enslaved  them,  one  may  regret  having  to  do  this  and 
do  it  only  with  measure,  but  it  can  not  be  avoided. 

Moreover,  by  depriving  Germany  totally  and  definitely 
of  her  colonies  because  she  has  ill-treated  the  natives,  one 
forfeits  the  right  to  refuse  to  Poland  or  to  Bohemia  their 
natural  frontiers  on  the  ground  that  Germans  have  oc- 
cupied their  territory  as  the  forerunners  of  Pan-German- 
ism. 

IV 

The  note  of  March  26  insists — and  the  French  Govern- 
ment is  in  complete  agreement — on  the  necessity  of  making 


104  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

a  peace  that  will  appear  to  Germany  to  be  a  just  peace. 
But  it  may  be  remarked  that  taking  German  mentality 
into  consideration,  it  is  not  sure  that  the  Germans  will  have 
the  same  idea  of  what  is  just  as  the  Allies  have. 

Finally  it  must  be  retained  that  this  impression  of  jus- 
tice must  be  felt  not  only  by  the  enemy  but  also,  and  first 
of  all,  by  the  Allies.  The  Allies  who  have  fought  together 
must  conclude  a  peace  which  will  be  fair  to  all  of  them. 

But  what  would  be  the  result  of  following  the  method 
suggested  in  the  note  of  March  26? 

A  certain  number  of  full  and  final  guarantees  would  be 
insured  to  the  maritime  nations  which  have  never  been 
invaded. 

Full  and  final  cession  of  the  German  colonies. 

Full  and  final  surrender  of  the  German  Navy. 

Full  and  final  surrender  of  a  large  part  of  the  German 
merchant  marine. 

Full  and  lasting,  if  not  final,  exclusion  of  Germany 
from  foreign  markets. 

To  the  Continental  nations,  however,  that  is  to  say  to 
those  who  have  suffered  the  most  from  the  war,  only 
partial  and  deferred  solutions  are  offered. 

Partial  solutions  such  as  the  reduced  frontier  suggested 
for  Poland  and  Bohemia. 

Deferred  solutions  such  as  the  defensive  undertaking 
offered  to  France  for  the  protection  of  her  territory. 

Deferred  solutions  such  as  the  proposed  arrangement  for 
the  Saar  coal. 

There  is  here  an  inequality  which  may  well  have  a  disas- 
trous influence  on  the  after-war  relations  between  the 
Allies,  which  are  more  important  than  the  after-war  rela- 
tions between  Germany  and  the  Allies. 

It  has  been  shown  in  Paragraph  I  that  it  would  be  an 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       105 

illusion  to  hope  to  find  in  territorial  satisfactions  given 
to  Germany  a  sufficient  compensation  for  the  world-wide 
disaster  she  has  sustained.  May  it  be  permitted  to  add  that 
it  would  be  an  injustice  to  make  the  weight  of  these  com- 
pensations fall  upon  those  of  the  Allied  nations  which 
have  borne  the  brunt  of  the  war. 

These  countries  can  not  bear  the  cost  of  the  peace  after 
having  borne  the  cost  of  the  war.  It  is  essential  that  they 
too  shall  have  the  feeling  that  the  peace  is  just  and  equal 
for  all. 

Failing  this,  it  is  not  only  Central  Europe  in  which 
Bolshevism  may  be  feared,  for  as  events  have  shown,  no 
atmosphere  is  more  favorable  to  Bolshevism  than  that  of 
national  disappointment. 


The  French  Government  desires  to  confine  itself  for  the 
time  being  to  these  considerations  of  general  policy. 

It  pays  full  homage  to  the  intentions  which  inspire  Mr. 
Lloyd  George's  note,  but  it  believes  that  the  considerations 
which  the  present  note  deduces  from  it  are  in  accord  with 
justice  and  the  general  interest. 

It  is  by  these  considerations  that  the  French  Government 
will  be  guided  in  the  coming  exchange  of  views  during 
the  discussion  of  the  terms  suggested  by  the  prime  minister 
of  Great  Britain. 

These  two  documents  are  of  more  than  usual 
interest. 

The  British  prime  minister,  with  his  remarkable 
insight,  at  once  notes  the  seriousness  of  the  situa- 
tion.   He  sees  the  danger  to  the  peace  of  the  world 


106  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

in  Gorman  depression.  Germany  oppressed  does 
not  mean  Germany  subjected.  Every  year  France 
Avill  become  numerically  weaker,  Germany  stronger. 
The  horrors  of  war  will  be  forgotten  and  the  main- 
tenance of  peace  will  depend  on  the  creation  of  a 
situation  which  makes  life  possible,  does  not  cause 
exasperation  to  come  into  public  feeling  or  into  the 
just  claims  of  Germans  desirous  of  independence. 
Injustice  in  the  hour  of  triumph  will  never  be  par- 
doned, can  never  be  atoned. 

So  the  idea  of  handing  over  to  other  states  large 
groups  of  German  nationality  is  not  only  an  injus- 
tice, but  a  cause  of  future  wars,  and  what  can  be  said 
of  Germans  is  also  true  of  Magyars.  No  cause  of 
future  wars  must  be  allowed  to  remain.  Putting 
millions  of  Germans  under  Polish  rule — that  is,  un- 
der an  inferior  people  which  has  never  shown  any 
capacity  for  stable  self-government — must  lead  to 
a  new  war  sooner  or  later.  If  Germany  in  exaspera- 
tion became  a  country  of  revolution,  what  would 
happen  to  Europe?  You  can  impose  severe  condi- 
tions, but  that  does  not  mean  that  you  can  enforce 
them;  the  conditions  to  be  imposed  must  be  such 
that  a  responsible  German  Government  can  in  good 
faith  assume  the  obligation  of  carrying  them  out. 

Neither  Great  Britain  nor  the  United  States  of 
America  can  assume  the  obligation  of  occupying 
Germany  if  it  does  not  carry  out  the  excessively 
severe  conditions  which  it  is  desired  to  impose.  Can 
France  occupy  Germany  alone? 

From  that  moment  Lloyd  George  saw  the  neces- 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       107 

sity  of  admitting  Germany  into  the  League  of  Na- 
tions at  once,  and  proposed  a  scheme  of  treaty  con- 
taining conditions  which,  while  very  severe,  were  in 
part  tolerable  for  the  German  people. 

Clemenceau's  reply,  issued  a  few  days  later,  con- 
tains the  French  point  of  view,  and  has  an  ironical 
note  when  it  touches  on  the  weak  points  in  Lloyd 
George  's  argument.  The  war,  says  the  French  note, 
was  not  a  European  war;  Germany's  eyes  were 
fixed  on  world  power,  and  she  saw  that  her  future 
was  on  the  sea.  There  is  no  necessity  to  show  con- 
sideration regarding  territorial  conditions  in  Eu- 
rope. By  taking  away  her  commercial  fleet,  her  col- 
onies and  her  foreign  markets  more  harm  is  done  to 
Germany  than  by  taking  European  territory.  To 
pacify  her  (if  there  is  any  occasion  for  doing  so) 
she  must  be  offered  commercial  satisfaction.  At 
this  point  the  note,  in  considering  questions  of  jus- 
tice and  of  mere  utility,  becomes  distinctly  ironical. 

Having  decided  to  bring  to  life  new  states,  espec- 
ially Poland  and  Czecho-Slovakia,  why  not  give 
them  safe  frontiers  even  if  some  Germans  or  Mag- 
yars have  to  be  sacrificed? 

One  of  Clemenceau's  fixed  ideas  is  that  criterions 
of  justice  must  not  be  applied  to  Germans.  The 
note  says  explicitly  that,  given  the  German  mental- 
ity, it  is  by  no  means  sure  that  the  conception  of 
justice  of  Germany  will  be  the  same  as  that  of  the 
Allies. 

On  another  occasion,  after  the  signing  of  the 
treaty,  when  Lloyd  George  pointed  out  the  wisdom 


108  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

of  not  claiming  from  Germany  the  absurdity  of 
handing  over  thousands  of  officers  accused  of 
cruelty  for  judgment  by  their  late  enemies,  and 
recognized  frankly  the  impossibility  of  carrying  out 
such  a  stipulation  in  England  and  in  Italy.  Clem- 
enceau  replied  simply  that  the  Germans  are  not  like 
the  English. 

The  neatest  point  in  Clemenceau's  note  is  the  con- 
tradiction in  which  he  tries  to  involve  the  British 
prime  minister  between  the  clauses  of  the  treaty 
concerning  Germany  outside  Europe,  in  which  no 
moderation  had  been  shown,  and  those  regarding 
Germany  in  Europe,  in  which  he  himself  did  not 
consider  moderation  either  necessary  or  opportune. 

There  was  an  evident  divergence  of  views,  clear- 
ing the  way  for  a  calm  review  of  the  conditions  to 
be  imposed,  and  here  two  countries  could  have  ex- 
ercised decisive  action :  the  United  States  and  Italy. 

But  the  United  States  was  represented  by  Wilson, 
who  was  already  in  a  difficult  situation.  By  suc- 
cessive concessions,  the  gravity  of  which  he  had  not 
realized,  he  found  himself  confronted  by  drafts  of 
treaties  which  in  the  end  were  contradictions  of  all 
his  proposals,  the  absolute  antithesis  of  the  pledges 
he  had  given.  It  is  quite  possible  that  he  had  not 
seen  where  he  was  going,  but  his  frequent  irrita- 
tion was  the  sign  of  his  distress.  Still,  in  the  ship- 
wreck of  his  whole  program,  he  had  succeeded  in 
saving  one  thing,  the  covenant  of  the  League  of 
Nations  which  was  to  be  prefaced  to  all  the  treaties. 
He  wanted  to  go  back  to  America  and  meet  the 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       109 

Senate  with  at  least  something  to  show  as  a  record 
of  the  great  undertaking,  and  he  hoped  and  believed 
in  good  faith  that  the  pact  of  the  League  of  Nations 
would  sooner  or  later  have  brought  about  agreement 
and  modified  the  worst  of  the  mistakes  made.  His 
conception  of  things  was  academic,  and  he  had  not 
realized  that  there  was  need  to  constitute  the  nations 
before  laying  down  rules  for  the  League ;  he  trusted 
that  bringing  them  together  with  mutual  pledges 
would  further  most  efficiently  the  cause  of  peace 
among  the  peoples.  On  the  other  hand,  there  was 
a  mutual  diffidence  between  Wilson  and  Lloyd 
George,  and  there  was  little  likelihood  that  a  move 
by  the  British  prime  minister  would  have  checked 
the  course  the  Conference  had  taken. 

Italy  might  have  done  a  great  work  if  its  repre- 
sentatives had  had  a  clear  policy.  But,  as  M.  Tar- 
dieu  says,  they  had  no  share  in  the  effective  doings 
of  the  Conference,  and  their  activity  was  almost 
entirely  absorbed  in  the  question  of  Fiume.  The 
Conference  was  a  three-sided  conversation  between 
Wilson,  Clemenceau  and  Lloyd  George,  and  the 
latter  had  hostility  and  diffidence  on  each  side  of 
him,  with  Italy — as  earlier  stated — for  the  most  part 
absent.  Also,  it  was  just  then  that  the  divergence 
between  Wilson  and  the  Italian  representatives 
reached  its  acute  stage.  The  essential  parts  of  the 
treaty  were  decided  in  April  and  the  beginning  of 
May,  on  April  22  the  question  of  the  right  bank  of 
the  Rhine,  on  the  23rd  or  24th  the  agreement  about 
reparations.    Italy  was  absent,  and  when  the  Italian 


110  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

delegates  rein  rued  to  Paris  without  being  asked  on 
May  6,  the  text  of  the  treaty  was  complete,  in  print. 
In  actual  fact,  only  one  person  did  really  effective 
work  and  directed  the  trend  of  the  Conference,  and 
that  person  was  Clemenceau. 

The  fact  that  the  Conference  met  in  Paris,  that 
everything  that  was  done  by  the  various  delegations 
was  known,  even  foreseen  so  that  it  could  be  op- 
posed, discredited,  even  destroyed  by  the  Press  be- 
forehand— a  thing  which  annoyed  Lloyd  George  so 
much  that  at  one  time  he  thought  seriously  of  leav- 
ing the  Conference — all  this  gave  an  enormous  ad- 
vantage to  the  French  delegation  and  especially  to 
Clemenceau  who  directed  the  Conference's  work. 

All  his  life  Clemenceau  has  been  a  tremendous 
destroyer.  For  years  and  years  he  has  done  nothing 
but  overthrow  governments  with  a  sort  of  obstinate 
ferocity.  He  was  an  old  man  when  he  was  called 
to  lead  the  country,  but  he  brought  with  him  all  his 
fighting  spirit.  No  one  detests  the  Church  and 
detests  Socialism  more  than  he ;  both  of  these  moral 
forces  are  equally  repulsive  to  his  individualistic 
spirit.  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  man  among  the 
politicians  I  have  known  who  is  more  individualistic 
than  Clemenceau,  who  remains  to-day  the  man  of 
the  old  democracy.  In  time  of  war  no  one  was  better 
fitted  than  he  to  lead  a  fighting  ministry,  fighting  at 
home,  fighting  abroad,  with  the  same  feeling,  the 
same  passion.  When  there  was  one  thing  only 
necessary  in  order  to  beat  the  enemy,  never  to  falter 
in  hatred,  never  to  doubt  the  sureness  of  victory,  no 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       111 

one  was  comparable  to  him,  no  one  could  be  more 
determined,  no  one  more  bitter.  But  when  war  was 
over,  when  it  was  peace  that  had  to  be  insured,  no 
one  could  be  less  fitted  for  the  work.  He  saw  noth- 
ing beyond  his  hatred  for  Germany,  the  necessity 
for  destroying  the  enemy,  sweeping  away  every  bit 
of  his  activity,  bringing  him  into  subjection.  On 
account  of  his  age  he  could  not  visualize  the  prob- 
lems of  the  future ;  he  could  only  see  one  thing  neces- 
sary, and  that  was  immediate,  to  destroy  the  enemy 
and  either  destroy  or  confiscate  all  his  means  of 
development.  He  was  not  nationalist  or  imperialist 
like  his  collaborators,  but  before  all  and  above  all 
one  idea  lived  in  him,  hatred  for  Germany.  To 
render  her  barren,  to  deprive  her  of  her  supports,  to 
destroy  her — this  was  the  consummation  of  the  war 
which  was  proposed  in  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  he 
and  the  financiers  who  surrounded  him  were  the 
true  artificers  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  and  of  the 
policy  which  is  still  in  force. 

He  had  said  in  the  French  Parliament  that  treaties 
of  peace  were  nothing  more  than  a  way  of  continuing 
war,  and  in  September,  1920,  in  his  preface  to  M. 
Tardieu's  book,  he  said  that  France  must  get  repara- 
tion for  Waterloo  and  Sedan.  Even  for  Waterloo : 
"  Waterloo  and  Sedan,  to  go  back  no  further,  forced 
upon  us  the  grievous  preoccupations  of  a  policy  of 
reparation. ' ' 

Tardieu  noted,  as  we  have  seen,  that  there  were 
only  three  people  in  the  Conference:  Wilson,  Cle- 
menceau  and  Lloyd  George.    Orlando,  he  remarks, 


112  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

spoke  little,  and  Italy  had  no  importance.  With 
subtle  irony  he  notes  that  Wilson  talked  like  a  uni- 
versity don  criticizing  an  essay  with  the  didactic 
logic  of  the  professor.  The  truth  is  that  after  hav- 
ing made  the  mistake  of  staying  in  the  Conference 
he  did  not  see  that  his  whole  edifice  was  tumbling 
down,  and  he  let  mistakes  accumulate  one  after  the 
other,  with  the  result  that  treaties  were  framed 
which,  as  already  pointed  out,  actually  destroyed  all 
the  principles  he  had  declared  to  the  world. 

Things  being  as  they  were  in  Paris,  Clemenceau's 
temperament,  the  pressure  of  French  industry  and 
of  the  newspapers,  the  real  anxiety  to  make  the  fu- 
ture safe,  and  the  desire  on  that  account  to  anni- 
hilate Germany,  France  naturally  demanded, 
through  its  representatives,  the  severest  sanctions, 
England,  given  the  realistic  nature  of  its  representa- 
tives and  the  calm  clear  vision  of  Lloyd  George, 
always  favored  in  general  the  more  moderate  solu- 
tions as  those  which  were  more  likely  to  be  carried 
out  and  would  least  disturb  the  equilibrium  of 
Europe.  So  it  came  about  that  the  decisions  seemed 
to  be  a  compromise,  but  were,  on  the  other  hand, 
actually  so  hard  and  so  stern  that  they  were  impos- 
sible of  execution. 

Without  committing  any  indiscretion  it  is  possi- 
ble to  see  now  from  the  publications  of  the  French 
representatives  at  the  Conference  themselves  what 
France's  claims  were. 

Let  us  try  to  sum  them  up. 

As  regards  disarmament  and  control  there  could 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       113 

have  been  and  there  ought  to  have  been  no  difficulty 
about  agreement.  I  am  in  favor  of  the  reduction  of 
all  armaments,  but  I  regard  it  as  a  perfectly  legiti- 
mate claim  that  the  country  principally  responsible 
for  the  war,  and  in  general  the  conquered  countries, 
should  be  obliged  to  disarm. 

No  one  would  regard  it  as  unfair  that  Germany 
and  the  conquered  countries  should  be  compelled  to 
reduce  their  armaments  to  the  measure  necessary  to 
guarantee  internal  order  only. 

But  a  distinction  must  be  drawn  between  military 
sanctions  meant  to  guarantee  peace  and  those 
destined  to  ruin  the  enemy.  In  actual  truth,  in  his 
solemn  pronouncements  after  the  entry  of  the 
United  States  into  the  war,  President  "Wilson  had 
never  spoken  of  a  separate  disarmament  of  the  con- 
quered countries,  but  of  adequate  guarantees  given 
and  received  that  national  armaments  should  be 
reduced  to  the  lowest  point  consistent  with  domestic 
safety.  Assurances  given  and  received:  that  is  to 
say,  an  identical  situation  as  between  conquerors 
and  conquered. 

No  one  can  deny  the  right  of  the  conqueror  to 
compel  the  conquered  enemy  to  give  up  his  arms  and 
reduce  his  military  armaments,  at  any  rate  for  some 
time.    But  on  this  point  too  there  was  useless  excess. 

I  should  never  have  thought  of  publishing 
France's  claims.  Bitterness  comes  that  way,  re- 
sponsibility is  incurred,  in  future  it  may  be  an  argu- 
ment in  your  adversary's  hands.  But  M.  Tardieu 
has  taken  this  office  on  himself  and  has  told  us  all 


114  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

France  did,  recounting  her  claims  from  the  acts  of 
the  Conference  itself.  Reference  is  easy  to  the 
story  written  by  one  of  the  representatives  of 
France,  possibly  the  most  efficient  through  having 
been  in  America  a  long  time  and  having  fuller  and 
more  intimate  knowledge  of  the  American  represen- 
tatives, particularly  Colonel  House. 

Generally  speaking,  in  every  claim  the  French 
representatives  started  from  an  extreme  position, 
and  that  was  not  only  a  state  of  mind,  it  was  a 
tactical  measure.  Later  on,  if  they  gave  any  part  of 
their  claim,  they  had  the  air  of  yielding,  of  accepting 
a  compromise.  When  their  claims  were  of  such  an 
extreme  nature  that  the  anxiety  they  caused,  the 
opposition  they  raised,  was  evident,  Clemenceau  put 
on  an  air  of  moderation  and  gave  way  at  once. 
Sometimes,  too,  he  showed  moderation  himself,  when 
it  suited  his  purpose,  but  in  reality  he  only  gave  way 
when  he  saw  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  what  he 
wanted. 

In  points  where  English  and  American  interests 
were  not  involved,  given  the  difficult  position  in 
which  Lloyd  George  was  placed  and  Wilson's  utter 
ignorance  of  all  European  questions,  with  Italy 
keeping  almost  entirely  apart,  the  French  point  of 
view  always  came  out  on  top,  if  slightly  modified. 
But  the  original  claim  was  always  so  extreme  that 
the  modification  left  standing  the  most  radically 
severe  measure  against  the  conquered  countries. 

Many  decisions  affecting  France  were  not  suffi- 
ciently criticized.    The  position  of  the  English  and 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       115 

the  Americans  toward  France  was  such  that  every 
objection  of  theirs  was  bound  to  appear  as  an  act 
of  ill  will,  a  pleading  of  the  enemy 's  cause. 

Previously,  in  nearly  every  case  when  peace  was 
being  made,  the  representatives  of  the  conquered 
eountries  had  been  called  to  state  their  case,  oppor- 
tunity was  given  for  discussion.  The  Russo-Japan- 
ese peace  is  an  example.  Undoubtedly  the  aggression 
of  Russia  had  been  unscrupulous  and  premeditated, 
but  both  parties  participated  in  drawing  up  the 
peace  treaty.  At  Paris,  possibly  for  the  first  time 
in  history,  the  destiny  of  the  most  cultured  people 
in  Europe  wTas  decided — or  rather  it  was  thought 
that  it  was  being  decided — without  even  listening  to 
what  they  had  to  say  and  without  hearing  from  their 
representatives  if  the  conditions  imposed  could  or 
could  not  possibly  be  carried  out.  Later  on  an  ex- 
ception, if  only  a  purely  formal  one,  was  made  in 
the  case  of  Hungary,  whose  delegates  were  heard; 
but  it  will  remain  forever  a  terrible  precedent  in 
modern  history  that,  against  all  pledges,  all  prece- 
dents and  all  traditions,  the  representatives  of  Ger- 
many were  never  even  heard;  nothing  was  left  to 
them  but  to  sign  a  treaty  at  a  moment  when  famine 
and  exhaustion  and  threat  of  revolution  made  it  im- 
possible not  to  sign  it. 

If  Germany  had  not  signed  she  would  have  suf- 
fered less  loss.  But  at  that  time  conditions  at  home 
with  latent  revolution  threatening  the  whole  em- 
pire, made  it  imperative  to  accept  any  solution,  and 
all  the  more  as  the  Germans  considered  that  they 


116  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Ave  re  not  bound  by  their  signature,  the  decisions  hav- 
ing been  imposed  by  violence  without  any  hearing 
being  given  to  the  conquered  party,  and  the  most 
serious  decisions  being  taken  without  any  real  exam- 
ination of  the  facts.  In  the  old  canon  law  of  the 
Church  it  was  laid  down  that  every  one  must  have  a 
hearing,  even  the  devil:  Etiam  diabidus  audiatur 
(Even  the  devil  has  the  right  to  be  heard).  But  the 
new  democracy,  which  proposed  to  install  the  society 
of  the  nations,  did  not  even  obey  the  precepts  which 
the  dark  Middle  Ages  held  sacred  on  behalf  of  the 
accused. 

Conditions  in  Germany  were  terribly  difficult,  and 
an  army  of  two  hundred  thousand  men  was  con- 
sidered by  the  military  experts  the  minimum  neces- 
sary. The  military  commission  presided  over  by 
Marshal  Foch  left  Germany  an  army  of  two  hundred 
thousand  men,  recruited  by  conscription,  a  staff  in 
proportion,  service  of  one  year,  fifteen  divisions,  180 
heavy  guns,  600  field-guns.  That  is  less  than  what 
little  states  without  any  resources  have  now,  three 
years  after  the  close  of  the  war.  But  France  at 
once  imposed  the  reduction  of  the  German  Army  to 
100,000  men,  of  whom  4,000  were  to  be  officers,  no 
conscription  but  a  twelve  years'  service  of  paid  sol- 
diers, artillery  reduced  practically  to  nothing,  no 
heavy  guns  at  all,  very  few  field-guns.  No  oppor- 
tunity was  given  for  discussion,  nor  was  there  any. 
Clemenceau  put  the  problem  in  such  a  way  that  dis- 
cussion was  out  of  the  question:  "It  is  France  who 
to-morrow  as  yesterday  will  be  face  to  face  with 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       117 

Germany. "  Lloyd  George  and  Colonel  House  con- 
fined themselves  to  saying  that  if  on  this  point 
France  formally  expressed  her  views,  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States  had  no  right  to  oppose  them. 
Lloyd  George  was  convinced  that  the  measures  were 
too  extreme  and  had  tried  on  May  23, 1919,  to  modify 
them ;  but  France  insisted  on  imposing  on  Germany 
this  situation  of  tremendous  difficulty. 

I  have  referred  to  the  military  conditions  imposed 
on  Germany:  destruction  of  all  war  material,  fort- 
resses and  armament  factories;  prohibition  of  any 
trade  in  arms;  destruction  of  the  fleet;  occupation 
of  the  west  bank  of  the  Rhine  and  the  bridgeheads 
for  fifteen  years ;  Allied  control,  with  wide  powers, 
over  the  execution  of  the  military  and  naval  clauses 
of  the  treaty,  with  consequent  subjection  of  all  public 
administrations  and  private  companies  to  the  will  of 
a  foreigner,  or  rather  of  an  enemy  kept  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Germany  itself  and  at  no  small  expense, 
etc.  In  some  of  the  inter-allied  conferences  I  have 
had  to  take  note  of  what  these  commissions  of  con- 
trol really  are,  and  their  absurd  extravagance,  based 
on  the  argument  that  the  enemy  must  pay  for  every- 
thing. 

The  purport  of  France 's  action  in  the  Conference 
was  not  to  insure  safe  military  guarantees  against 
Germany  but  to  destroy  her,  at  any  rate  to  cut  her 
up.  And  indeed,  when  France  had  got  all  she  wanted 
and  Germany  was  helpless,  she  continued  the  same 
policy,  even  intensifying  it.  Every  bit  of  territory 
possible  must  be  taken,  German  unity  must  be  brok- 


118  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

on,  and  not  only  military  bni  industrial  Germany 
must  be  laid  Low  under  a  scries  of  controls  and  an 
impossible  number  of  obligations. 

All  know  how,  in  Article  428  of  the  treaty,  it  is 
laid  down,  as  a  guarantee  of  tiie  execution  of  the 
treaty  terms  on  the  part  of  Germany,  or  rather  as 
a  more  extended  military  guarantee  for  France,  that 
German  territory  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Rhine  and 
the  bridgeheads  are  to  be  occupied  by  Allied  and 
Associated  troops  for  fifteen  years,  methods  and 
regulations  for  such  occupation  following  in  Articles 
429  and  432. 

This  occupation  not  only  gives  deep  offense  to 
Germany  (France  has  always  looked  back  with  great 
bitterness  on  the  few  months '  military  occupation  by 
her  Prussian  conquerors  in  the  War  of  1870),  but  it 
paralyzes  all  her  activity  and  is  generally  judged  to 
be  completely  useless. 

All  the  Allies  were  ready  to  give  France  every 
military  guarantee  against  any  unjust  aggression 
by  Germany,  but  France  wanted  in  addition  the  oc- 
cupation of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  It  was  a 
very  delicate  matter,  and  the  notes  presented  to  the 
Conference  by  Great  Britain  on  March  26  and  April 
2,  by  the  United  States  on  March  28  and  April  12, 
show  how  embarrassed  the  two  governments  were 
in  considering  a  question  that  France  regarded  as 
essential  for  her  future.  It  has  to  be  added  that 
the  action  of  Marshal  Foch  in  this  matter  was  not 
entirely  constitutional.  He  claimed  that,  independ- 
ently of  nationality,  France  and  Belgium  have  the 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       119 

right  to  look  on  the  Rhine  as  the  indispensable  fron- 
tier for  the  nations  of  the  west  of  Europe,  et  par  la, 
de  la  civilisation.  Neither  Lloyd  George  nor  Wilson 
could  swallow  the  argument  of  the  Rhine  as  a  fron- 
tier between  the  civilization  of  France  and  Belgium 
— all  civilization,  indeed — and  Germany. 

In  the  treaty  the  occupation  of  the  left  bank  of 
the  Rhine  and  the  bridgeheads  by  the  Allied  and 
Associated  Powers  for  fifteen  years  was  introduced 
as  a  compromise.  Such  districts  will  be  evacuated 
by  degrees  every  five  years  if  Germany  shall  have 
faithfully  carried  out  the  terms  of  the  treaty.  Now 
the  conditions  of  the  treaty  are  in  large  measure 
impossible  of  execution,  and  in  consequence  no  exe- 
cution of  them  can  ever  be  described  as  faithful. 
Further,  the  occupying  troops  are  paid  by  Germany. 
It  follows  that  the  conception  of  the  occupation  of 
the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  was  of  a  fact  of  unlimited 
duration.  The  harm  that  would  result  from  the 
occupation  was  pointed  out  at  the  Conference  by 
the  American  representatives  and  even  more 
strongly  by  the  English.  What  was  the  use  of  it, 
they  asked,  if  the  German  Army  were  reduced  to 
100,000  men?  M.  Tardieu  himself  tells  the  story  of 
all  the  efforts  made,  especially  by  Lloyd  George  and 
Bonar  Law,  to  prevent  the  blunder  which  later  on 
was  endorsed  in  the  treaty  as  Article  428.  Lloyd 
George  went  so  far  as  to  complain  of  political 
intrigues  for  creating  disorder  on  the  Rhine.  But 
Clemenceau  took  care  to  put  the  question  in  such  a 
form  that  no  discussion  was  possible.    In  the  matter 


120  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

of  the  occupation,  be  said  to  the  English,  you  do  not 
understand  the  French  point  of  view.  You  live  in 
an  island  with  the  sea  as  defense,  we  on  the  con- 
tinent with  a  bad  frontier.  We  do  not  look  for  an 
attack  by  Germany  but  for  systematic  refusal  to 
carry  out  the  terms  of  the  treaty.  Never  was  there 
a  treaty  with  so  many  clauses,  with,  consequently, 
so  many  risks  of  evasion.  Against  that  risk  the  ma- 
terial guarantee  of  occupation  is  necessary.  There 
are  two  methods  in  direct  contrast:  "In  England  it 
is  believed  that  the  way  to  succeed  is  by  making 
concessions.  In  France  we  believe  that  it  is  by  tak- 
ing decisive  action." 

On  March  14  Lloyd  George  and  Wilson  had  of- 
fered France  the  fullest  military  guarantee  in  place 
of  the  occupation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine. 
France  wanted,  and  in  fact  got,  the  occupation  as 
well  as  the  alliances.  "Our  object V9  says  Tardieu. 
"To  make  sure  of  the  proffered  guarantee  but  with 
the  addition  of  occupation.' 9  Outside  the  Versailles 
Treaty  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  had 
made  several  treaties  of  alliance  with  France  for  the 
event  of  unprovoked  aggression  by  Germany.  Later 
on  the  French-English  Treaty  was  approved  by  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  French-American  under- 
went the  same  fate  as  the  Versailles  Treaty.  But 
the  treaty  with  Great  Britain  fell  through  also  on 
account  of  the  provision  that  it  should  come  into 
force  simultaneously  with  the  American  Treaty. 

In  a  Paris  newspaper  Poincare  published  in  Sep- 
tember, 1921,  some  strictly  private  documents  on 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       121 

the  questions  of  the  military  guarantees  and  the 
occupation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  He  wished 
to  get  the  credit  of  having  stood  firm  when  Clemen- 
ceau  himself  hesitated  at  the  demand  for  an  occupa- 
tion of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  for  even  a  longer 
period  than  fifteen  years.  He  has  published  the 
letter  he  sent  to  Clemenceau  to  be  shown  to  "Wilson 
and  Lloyd  George  and  the  latter 's  reply. 

He  said  that  there  must  be  no  thought  of  giving 
up  the  occupation  and  renouncing  a  guarantee  until 
every  obligation  in  the  treaty  should  have  been  car- 
ried out ;  he  went  so  far  as  to  claim  that  in  occupa- 
tion regarded  as  a  guarantee  of  a  credit  representing 
an  indemnity  for  damages,  there  is  nothing  contrary 
to  the  principles  proclaimed  by  President  Wilson 
and  recognized  by  the  Allies.  Nor  would  it  suffice 
even  to  have  the  faculty  of  reoccupation,  because 
"this  faculty"  could  never  be  a  valid  substitute  for 
occupation.  As  regards  the  suggestion  that  a  long 
occupation  or  one  for  an  indeterminate  period  would 
cause  bad  feeling,  M.  Pioncare  was  convinced  that 
this  was  an  exaggeration.  A  short  occupation 
causes  more  irritation  on  account  of  its  arbitrary 
limit;  every  one  understands  an  occupation  without 
other  limit  than  the  complete  carrying  out  of  the 
treaty.  The  longer  the  time  that  passes  the  better 
would  become  the  relations  between  the  German 
populations  and  the  armies  of  occupation. 

Clemenceau  communicated  Pioncare 's  letter  to 
Lloyd  George.  The  British  prime  minister  replied 
on  May  6  in  the  clearest  terms.    In  his  eyes,  forcing 


122  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Germany  to  submit  to  the  occupation  of  the  Rhine 
and  tli<i  Rhine  Provinces  for  an  unlimited  period, 
was  a  provocation  to  renew  the  war  in  Europe. 

During  the  Conference,  France  pul  forward  some 
proposals,  the  aim  of  which  was  nothing  less  than 
to  split  up  Germany.  A  typical  example  is  the 
memorandum  presented  by  the  French  delegation 
claiming  the  annexation  of  the  Saar  territory.  This 
is  completely  German;  in  the  six  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  inhabitants  before  the  war  there  were  not 
a  hundred  French.  Not  a  word  had  ever  been  said 
about  annexation  of  the  Saar  either  in  government 
pronouncements  or  in  any  vote  in  the  French  Par- 
liament, nor  had  it  been  discussed  by  any  political 
party.  No  one  had  ever  suggested  such  annexation, 
which  certainly  was  a  far  more  serious  thing  than 
the  annexation  of  Alsace-Lorraine  to  Germany,  as 
there  was  considerable  German  population  in 
Alsace-Lorraine.  There  was  no  French  population 
at  all  in  the  Saar,  and  the  territory  in  question  could 
not  even  be  claimed  for  military  reasons  but  only 
for  its  economic  resources.  Reasons  of  history 
could  not  count,  for  they  were  all  in  Germany's 
favor.  Nevertheless  the  request  was  put  forward 
as  a  matter  of  sentiment.  Had  not  the  Saar  be- 
longed in  other  days  entirely  or  in  part  to  France? 
Politics  and  economics  are  not  everything,  said 
Clemenceau;  history  also  has  great  value.  For  the 
United  States  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  are  a 
long  time;  for  France  they  count  little.  Material 
reparations  are  not  enough,  there  must  be  moral 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       123 

reparations  too,  and  the  conception  of  France  can 
not  be  the  same  as  that  of  her  Allies.  The  desire  for 
the  Saar  corresponded,  according  to  Clemenceau,  to 
a  need  of  moral  reparation. 

On  this  point,  too,  the  extreme  French  claim  was 
modified.  The  Saar  mines  were  given  to  France,  not 
provisionally  as  a  matter  of  reparations,  but  per- 
manently with  full  right  of  possession  and  full 
guarantees  for  their  working.  For  fifteen  years 
from  the  date  of  the  treaty  the  government  of  the 
territory  was  put  in  the  hands  of  the  League  of 
Nations  as  trustee;  after  fifteen  years  the  popula- 
tion, entirely  German,  should  be  called  to  decide 
under  what  government  they  desired  to  live.  In 
other  words,  in  a  purely  German  country,  which  no 
one  in  France  had  ever  claimed,  of  which  no  one  in 
France  had  ever  spoken  during  the  war,  the  most 
important  property  was  handed  to  a  conquering 
state,  the  country  was  put  under  the  administration 
of  the  conquerors  (which  is  what  the  League  of  Na- 
tions actually  is  at  present),  and  after  fifteen  years 
of  torment  the  population  is  to  be  put  through  a 
plebiscite.  Meanwhile  the  French  custom  regula- 
tions rule  in  the  Saar  and  the  national  sentiment  of 
its  inhabitants  is  subjected  to  every  form  of  absurd 
and  iniquitous  offense. 

It  was  open  to  the  treaty  to  adopt  or  not  to  adopt 
the  system  of  plebiscites.  When  it  was  a  case  of 
handing  over  great  masses  of  German  populations, 
a  plebiscite  was  imperative — at  any  rate,  where  any 
doubt  existed,  and  the  more  so  in  concessions  which 


124  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

formed  no  part  of  the  war  aims  and  were  not  found 
in  any  pronouncement  of  the  Allies.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  all  cessions  of  German  territory  to  Poland 
and  Bohemia,  no  mention  is  made  of  a  plebiscite 
because  it  was  a  question  of  military  necessity  or  of 
lands  which  had  been  historically  victims  of  Ger- 
many. But  only  for  Schleswig,  Upper  Silesia, 
Marienwerder,  Allenstein,  Klagenfurth  and  the  Saar 
were  plebiscites  laid  down — and  with  the  exception 
that  the  plebiscite  itself,  when,  as  in  the  case  of  Up- 
per Silesia,  it  resulted  in  favor  of  Germany,  was 
not  regarded  as  conclusive. 

But  where  the  most  extreme  views  clashed  was  in 
the  matter  of  reparations  and  the  indemnity  to  be 
claimed  from  the  enemy. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  theory  of  repara- 
tion for  damage  found  its  way  incidentally,  even 
before  the  treaty  was  considered,  into  the  armistice 
terms.  No  word  had  been  said  previously  of  claim- 
ing from  the  conquered  enemy  anything  beyond 
restoration  of  devastated  territories,  but  after  the 
war  another  theory  was  produced.  If  Germany  and 
her  allies  are  solely  responsible  for  the  war,  they 
must  pay  the  whole  cost  of  the  war:  damage  to  prop- 
erty, persons  and  war  expenses  generally.  When 
damage  has  been  done,  he  who  has  done  the  wrong 
must  make  reparation  for  it  to  the  utmost  limit  of 
his  resources. 

The  American  delegation  struck  a  note  of  modera- 
tion :  no  claim  should  be  made  beyond  what  was  es- 
tablished in  the  peace  conditions,  reparation  for 


TEEATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       125 

actions  which  were  an  evident  violation  of  inter- 
national law,  restoration  of  invaded  country,  and 
reparation  for  damage  caused  to  the  civil  population 
and  to  its  property. 

During  the  war  there  were  a  number  of  exagger- 
ated pronouncements  on  the  immense  resources  of 
Germany  and  her  capacity  for  payment. 

Besides  all  the  burdens  with  which  Germany  was 
loaded,  there  was  a  discussion  on  the  sum  which  the 
Allies  should  claim.  If  the  war  had  cost  seven  hun- 
dred billion  francs,  the  claims  for  damage  to  persons 
and  property  amounted  to  at  least  three  hundred 
and  fifty  billions  for  all  the  Allies  together. 

Whatever  the  sum  might  be,  when  it  had  been  laid 
down  in  the  treaty  what  damage  was  to  be  idemni- 
fied,  the  French  negotiators  claimed  sixty-five  per 
cent.,  leaving  thirty-five  per  cent,  for  all  the  others. 

What  was  necessary  was  to  lay  down  proportions, 
not  the  actual  amount  of  the  sum.  It  was  impossible 
to  say  at  once  what  amount  the  damages  would 
reach:  that  was  the  business  of  the  Reparations 
Commission. 

Instead  of  inserting  in  the  treaty  the  enormous 
figures  spoken  of,  the  quality,  not  the  quantity,  of 
the  damages  to  be  indemnified  was  laid  down.  But 
the  standard  of  reckoning  led  to  fantastic  figures. 

An  impossible  amount  had  to  be  paid,  and  the 
delegations  were  discussing  then  the  very  same 
things  that  are  being  discussed  now.  The  American 
experts  saw  the  gross  mistake  of  the  other  delega- 
tions, and  put  down  as  the  maximum  payment  three 


126  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

hundred  and  twenty-five  billion  marks  up  to  1951, 
the  first  payment  to  be  twenty-five  billion  marks  in 
1921.  So  was  invented  the  Reparations  Commission 
machine,  a  thing  which  has  no  precedent  in  any 
treaty,  being  a  commission  with  sovereign  powers 
to  control  the  life  of  the  whole  of  Germany. 

In  actual  truth  no  serious  person  has  ever  thought 
that  Germany  can  pay  more  than  a  certain  number 
of  billions  a  year,  no  one  believes  that  a  country  can 
be  subjected  to  a  regime  of  control  for  thirty  years. 

But  the  directing  line  of  work  of  the  treaties  has 
been  to  break  down  Germany,  to  cut  her  up,  to  suffo- 
cate her. 

France  had  but  one  idea,  and  later  on  did  not 
hesitate  to  admit  it:  to  dismember  Germany,  to 
destroy  her  unity.  By  creating  intolerable  condi- 
tions of  life,  taking  away  territory  on  the  frontier, 
putting  large  districts  under  military  occupation, 
delaying  or  not  making  any  diplomatic  appointments 
and  carrying  on  communications  solely  through  mili- 
tary commissions,  a  state  of  things  was  brought 
about  that  must  inevitably  tend  to  weaken  the  con- 
stitutional unity  of  the  German  Empire.  Taking 
away  from  Germany  eighty-four  thousand  kilome- 
ters of  territory,  nearly  eight  million  inhabitants 
and  all  the  most  important  mineral  resources,  pre- 
venting the  union  of  the  German  people  with  the 
six  million  and  five  hundred  thousand  of  German 
Austrians  to  which  Austria  was  then  reduced,  put- 
ting the  whole  German  country  under  an  intermin- 
able series  of  controls — all  this  did  more  harm  to 


TREATIES— ORIGINS  AND  AIMS       127 

German  unity  than  would  have  been  done  by  taking 
the  responsibility  of  a  forcible  and  immediate  di- 
vision to  which  the  Germans  could  not  have  con- 
sented and  which  the  Allies  could  not  have  claimed 
to  impose. 

What  has  been  said  about  Germany  and  the  Ver- 
sailles Treaty  can  be  said  about  all  the  other  con- 
quered countries  and  all  the  other  treaties,  with 
merely  varying  proportions  in  each  case. 

The  verdict  that  has  to  be  passed  on  them  will 
very  soon  be  shown  by  facts — if  indeed  facts  have 
not  shown  already  that,  in  great  measure,  what  had 
been  laid  down  can  not  be  carried  out.  One  thing 
is  certain,  that  the  actual  treaties  threaten  to  ruin 
conquerors  and  conquered,  that  they  have  not 
brought  peace  to  Europe,  but  conditions  of  war  and 
violence.  In  Clemenceau's  words,  the  treaties  are 
a  method  of  continuing  war. 

But,  even  if  it  were  possible  to  dispute  that,  as 
men's  minds  can  not  yet  frame  an  impartial  judg- 
ment and  the  danger  is  not  seen  by  all,  there  is  one 
thing  that  can  not  be  denied  or  disputed,  and  that 
is  that  the  treaties  are  the  negation  of  the  principles 
for  which  the  United  States  and  Italy,  without  any 
obligation  on  them,  entered  the  war ;  they  are  a 
perversion  of  all  the  Entente  had  repeatedly  pro- 
claimed; they  break  into  pieces  President  Wilson's 
fourteen  points  which  were  a  solemn  pledge  for  the 
American  people,  and  to-m<jg#row  they  will  be  the 
greatest  moral  weapon  with  which  the  conquered  of 
to-day  will  face  the  conquerors  of  to-day. 


IV 

THE   CONQUERORS   AND   THE   CONQUERED 

How  many  states  are  there  in  Europe?  Before 
the  war  the  political  geography  of  Europe  was 
virtually  fixed  by  history.  To-day  every  part  of 
Europe  is  in  a  state  of  flux.  The  only  absolute  cer- 
tainty is  that  in  Continental  Europe  conquerors  and 
conquered  are  in  a  condition  of  spiritual,  as  well  as 
economic,  unrest.  It  is  difficult  indeed  to  say  how 
many  political  units  there  are  and  how  many  are 
lasting,  and  what  new  wars  are  being  prepared,  if  a 
way  of  salvation  is  not  found  by  some  common  en- 
deavor to  restore  that  peace  which  the  treaty  makers 
at  Paris  did  not  succeed  in  establishing.  How  many 
thinking  men  can,  without  perplexity,  remember  how 
many  states  there  are  and  what  they  are :  arbitrary 
creations  of  the  treaties,  creations  of  the  moment, 
territorial  limitations  imposed  by  the  necessities  of 
international  agreements.  The  situation  of  Russia 
is  so  uncertain  that  no  one  knows  whether  new  states 
will  arise  as  a  result  of  her  further  disintegration 
or  if  she  will  be  reconstructed  in  a  solid,  unified 
form,  and  whether  other  states  among  those  which 
have  arisen  will  collapse. 

128 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   129 

Without  taking  into  account  those  traditional 
little  states  which  are  merely  historical  curiosities, 
as  Monaco,  San  Marino,  Andorra,  Monte  Santo,  not 
counting  Iceland  as  a  state  apart,  not  including  the 
Saar,  which  as  a  result  of  one  of  the  absurdities  of 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles  is  an  actual  state  outside 
Germany,  but  considering  Montenegro  as  an  exist- 
ing state,  Europe  probably  comprises  more  than 
thirty  states.  Some  of  them  are,  however,  in  such 
a  condition  that  they  do  not  give  promise  of  the 
slightest  guarantee  of  life  or  security.  Further, 
about  thirty  states  arisen  on  the  territory  of  the 
late  Russian  Empire  as  yet  enjoy  only  a  more  or 
less  conditional  status. 

Europe  has  been  rather  Balkanized:  not  only  did 
the  war  come  from  the  Balkans,  but  also  many  ideas, 
which  have  been  largely  exploited  in  parliamentary 
and  newspaper  circles.  Listening  to  many  speeches 
and  being  present  at  many  events  to-day  leaves  the 
sensation  of  being  in  Belgrade  or  at  Sarajevo. 

Europe,  including  Russia  and  including  also  the 
Polar  archipelagoes,  covers  an  area  of  a  little  more 
than  ten  million  square  kilometers.  Canada  is  of 
almost  the  same  size ;  the  United  States  of  America 
has  about  the  same  territory. 

The  historical  procedure  before  the  war  was  to- 
ward the  formation  of  large  territorial  units;  the 
post-bellum  procedure  is  entirely  toward  a  process 
of  dissolution,  and  the  splitting  up,  resulting  in  part 
from  necessity  and  in  part  also  from  the  desire  to 
dismember  the  old  empires  and  to  weaken  Germany, 


130  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

has  assumed  proportions  almost  impossible  to  fore- 

In  the  relations  between  the  various  states  good 
and  evil  are  not  abstract  ideas:  political  actions  can 
only  be  judged  by  their  results.  If  the  treaties  of 
peace  which  have  been  imposed  on  the  conquered 
were  capable  of  application,  we  could,  from  an 
ethnical  point  of  view,  regret  some  or  many  of  the 
decisions;  but  we  should  nevertheless  have  to  wait 
for  the  results  of  time  for  a  definite  judgment. 

The  difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  treaties  that 
have  been  concluded  can  not  be  applied,  or  at  least 
can  not  be  applied  without  the  rapid  dissolution  of 
Europe  and  the  collapse  of  the  conquerors  them- 
selves. 

So  the  balance  sheet  of  the  Peace,  three  years 
after  the  armistice,  that  is  three  years  after  the  war, 
indicates  on  the  whole  that  the  situation  has  grown 
steadily  worse.  The  spirit  of  violence  has  not  died 
out,  and  perhaps  in  some  countries  not  even  dimin- 
ished: on  the  other  hand  the  causes  of  mateiial  un- 
rest and  of  instability  have  increased,  the  line  of 
division  between  the  two  groups  has  grown  sharper 
and  the  causes  of  hatred  have  been  strengthened  and 
unified.  The  mad  dance  of  the  foreign  exchanges 
indicates  a  process  of  undoing  and  not  a  tendency  to 
reconstruction. 

We  have  referred  in  a  general  manner  to  the  con- 
ditions of  Germany  as  a  result  of  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles :  even  worse  is  the  situation  of  the  other  con- 
quered countries,  in  so  far  that  either  they  have 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   131 

not  been  treated  with  due  regard,  or  they  have  lost 
so  much  territory  that  they  have  no  possibility  of 
reconstructing  their  national  existence.  Such  is  the 
case  with  Austria,  with  Turkey  and  with  Hungary. 
Bulgaria,  which  has  a  tenacious  and  compact  popula- 
tion composed  of  small  agriculturists  faces  less  dif- 
ficult conditions  of  reconstruction. 

Germany  has  fulfilled  loyally  all  the  conditions  of 
disarmament.  After  she  had  handed  over  her  fleet, 
she  destroyed  her  fortifications,  she  destroyed  all 
the  material  up  to  the  extreme  limit  imposed  by  the 
treaties,  she  disbanded  her  enormous  armies.  If  in 
any  one  of  the  works  of  destruction  she  proceeded 
grudgingly,  if  she  sought  to  delay  them,  it  would  be 
perfectly  explicable.  We  walk  more  quickly  to  a 
ball  than  to  a  funeral.  At  the  actual  moment  Ger- 
many has  no  fleet,  no  army,  no  artillery,  and  is  in  a 
condition  in  which  she  could  not  reply  to  any  act  of 
violence.  This  is  why  all  the  aggressions  of  the 
Poles  against  Germany  have  met  with  no  reply  in 
kind. 

All  this  is  so  evident  that  no  one  can  raise  doubts 
on  the  question. 

Every  one  remembers,  said  Hindenburg,  the  dif- 
ficult task  that  the  United  States  had  in  putting  in 
the  field  an  army  of  a  million  men.  Nevertheless 
they  had  the  protection  of  the  ocean  during  the 
period  when  they  were  preparing  their  artillery  and 
the  material  for  their  air  service. 

Germany  for  her  aviation,  for  her  heavy  artillery, 
for  her  armaments  is  not  even  separated  by  the 


132  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

ocean  from  the  Allies,  and,  on  the  contrary,  they  are 
firmly  established  in  German  territory:  it  would 
require  many  months  to  prepare  a  new  war,  during 
which  France  and  her  allies  would  not  be  inactive. 

General  Ludendorff  recently  made  certain 
declarations  which  have  a  capital  importance,  since 
they  fit  the  facts  exactly.  He  declared  that  a  war 
of  reconquest  by  Germany  against  the  Allies  and 
especially  against  France  is  for  an  indefinite  time 
completely  impossible  from  the  technical  and  mili- 
tary point  of  view.  France  has  an  army  largely 
supplied  with  all  the  means  of  battle,  ready  to  march 
at  any  time,  which  could  smash  any  German  mili- 
tary organization  hostile  to  France.  The  more  so 
since  by  the  destruction  of  the  German  war  indus- 
tries, Germany  has  lost  every  possibility  of  arming 
herself  afresh.  It  is  absurd  to  believe  that  a  Ger- 
man army  ready  for  modern  warfare  can  be  or- 
ganized and  put  on  a  war  footing  secretly.  A  Ger- 
man army  which  could  fight  with  the  least  possible 
hope  of  success  against  an  enemy  army,  armed  and 
equipped  in  the  most  modern  manner,  wTould  first 
of  all  have  to  be  based  on  a  huge  German  war  indus- 
try, which  naturally  could  not  be  improved  or  built 
up  in  secret.  Even  if  a  third  power  wished  to  arm 
Germany,  it  would  not  be  possible  to  arm  her  so 
quickly  and  mobilize  her  in  sufficient  time  to  pre- 
vent the  enemy  army  from  obtaining  an  immediate 
and  decisive  victory. 

It  is  recognized  even  in  France  that  if  Germany 
should  start  a  war  under  present  conditions  this 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED  VS'6 

would  indicate  only  her  desire  to  commit  suicide.  In 
consequence  of  the  treaty  all  possible  obstacles  have 
been  marshalled  against  the  German  peril:  and 
against  Germany  there  have  been  accumulated  "such 
guarantees  that  never  before  has  history  recorded 
the  like,"*  and  Germany  can  not  do  anything  for 
many  years.  Mobilization  requires  years  and  years 
for  preparation  and  the  greatest  publicity  for  its 
execution. 

Wilson  spoke  of  guarantees  given  and  received  for 
the  reduction  of  armaments.  Instead  after  the 
treaties  had  been  concluded,  if  the  conquered  were 
completely  disarmed,  the  conquering  nations  have 
continued  to  arm.  Almost  all  the  conquering  na- 
tions have  not  only  increased  their  expenses  but 
their  armies  as  well.  If  the  conditions  of  peace  im- 
posed by  the  treaties  had  been  considered  possible, 
considering  that  the  former  enemies  are  now  harm- 
less, against  whom  is  this  continual  race  of  arma- 
ments directed? 

We  have  already  seen  the  military  conditions  im- 
posed on  Germany,  a  small  mercenary  army,  no 
obligatory  conscription,  no  military  instruction,  no 
aviation,  no  artillery  except  a  minimum,  and  insig- 
nificant quantity  required  by  the  necessities  of  civil 
order.  Austria,  Bulgaria,  and  Hungary  can  only 
have  insignificant  armies.  Austria  may  maintain 
under  arms  30,000  men,  but  her  ruined  finances  only 
permit  her  according  to  the  latest  reports,  to  keep 
21,700:   Bulgaria  has  20,000  men  plus  3,082  gen- 


*Tardieu,  The  Truth  about  the  Treaty. 


134  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

darmes:  Hungary,  according  to  the  Treaty  of 
Trianon,  has  35,000.  Turkey  in  Europe  which 
hardly  exists  any  more  as  a  territorial  slate,  except 
for  the  city  of  Constantinople,  where  the  sovereignty 
of  the  sultan  is  more  apparent  than  real,  has  in 
reality  no  army  at  all. 

Taken  all  together  the  states  which  formed  Ger- 
many's powerful  nucleus  of  military  strength  as 
they  are  now  reduced  territorially,  have  under  arms 
less  than  180,000  men,  not  including  naturally  those 
new  states  risen  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  central 
empires  and  which  arm  themselves  by  the  request 
and  sometimes  in  the  interest  of  some  state  of  the 
Entente. 

The  old  enemies  therefore  are  not  in  a  condition 
to  make  war,  and  are  placed  under  all  manner  of 
controls.  Sometimes  the  controls  are  even  of  a  very 
singular  nature.  All  have  been  occupied  in  giving 
the  sea  to  the  victors.  Poland  has  obtained  posses- 
sion of  that  absurd  and  immoral  paradox,  the  State 
of  Danzig,  in  order  that  it  might  have  an  outlet  on 
the  sea.  The  constant  aim  of  the  Allies,  even  in 
opposition  to  Italy,  has  been  to  give  free  and  safe 
outlets  on  the  seacoast  to  the  Serb-Croat-Jugo-Slav 
State. 

At  the  Conference  of  London  and  San  Remo,  I 
repeatedly  referred  to  the  expenses  of  these  military 
missions  of  control  and  often  their  outrageous  im- 
position on  the  conquered  who  are  suffering  from 
hunger.  There  are  generals  who  have  credited  them- 
selves with  expenses  and  indemnity  charges  of  such 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   135 

sorts  that  they  have  built  up  for  themselves,  salaries 
which  are  far  superior  to  that  of  the  president  of  the 
United  States  of  America.  At  Vienna  and  Buda- 
pest, where  the  people  are  dying  of  hunger,  the  Com- 
mission for  the  Danube  constitutes  a  veritable 
junketing  trip.  It  is  only  necessary  to  look  at  the 
expense  accounts  of  the  Reparations  Commissions 
to  be  convinced  that  this  sad  spectacle  of  greed  and 
luxury  humiliates  the  victors  more  than  the  con- 
quered. 

The  most  rapacious  war  profiteers,  both  civil  and 
military,  have  had  themselves  appointed  upon  com- 
missions of  control  for  the  disarmament  of  the  con- 
quered and  the  execution  of  the  treaties,  and  nearly 
all  of  them  run  up  salary  and  expense  accounts  that 
are  simply  stupendous.  All  this  is  done  not  only  in 
a  spirit  of  greed  but  in  a  spirit  of  violence  and 
revenge. 

I  do  not  wish  to  publish  data  which  have  been 
furnished  to  me  by  impartial  persons  in  authority, 
but  grafters  and  adventurers  have  been  scattered 
throughout  Europe.  They  were  of  such  a  sort  that 
the  robber  barons  of  the  Middle  Ages  might  have 
studied  their  methods  with  profit,  and  some  day  all 
this  will  be  regarded  as  a  disgrace. 

Enormous  and  useless  commissions  with  impossi- 
ble aims  and  programs  of  dissipation  are  nothing 
less  than  thefts. 

And  all  this  in  the  name  of  the  rights  of  victory 
has  been  carried  out  by  peoples  who  call  themselves 
civilized  and  democratic. 


136  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

German-Austria  has  lost  all  access  to  the  sea. 
She  can  not  live  on  her  resources  with  her  enormous 
capital  in  ruins.  She  can  not  unite  with  Germany 
being  a  purely  German  country,  because  the  treaty 
requires  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  League  of 
Nations,  and  France  having  refused:  it  is  therefore 
impossible !  She  can  not  unite  with  Czecho-Slovakia, 
with  Hungary  and  other  countries  which  have  been 
formed  from  the  Austrian  Empire  because  that  is 
against  the  aspirations  of  the  German  populations, 
and  would  mean  the  reconstitution  of  that  Danube 
State  which,  with  its  numerous  incompatibilities, 
was  one  of  the  essential  causes  of  the  war.  Austria 
has  lost  all  access  to  the  sea,  has  turned  over  her 
fleet  and  her  merchant  marine,  but  in  return  has 
received  in  exchange  the  doubtful  advantage  of  nu- 
merous Inter-Allied  commissions  of  control  to  safe- 
guard the  military,  naval  and  aeronautic  clauses. 
But  there  are  clauses  which  can  no  longer  be  justi- 
fied, as  for  instance,  since  Austria  has  no  longer 
seacoast,  Art.  140  of  the  Treaty  of  St.  Germain, 
which  forbids  the  construction  or  acquisition  of  any 
sort  of  submergible  vessel,  even  commercial.  It  is 
impossible  to  understand  why  (Art.  143)  the  wire- 
less high  power  station  of  Vienna  is  not  allowed  to 
transmit  other  than  commercial  telegrams,  under 
the  surveillance  of  the  Allied  and  Associated  Pow- 
ers, who  take  the  trouble  to  determine  even  the 
length  of  the  wave  to  be  used. 

Before  the  war,  in  1914,  France  desired  to  bring 
her  army  to  the  maximum  of  efficiency:  opposite  a 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   137 

great  German  army  was  to  be  found  a  great  French 
army. 

Germany  had  in  1913,  according  to  the  budget  pre- 
sented to  the  Reichstag,  a  standing  army  of  647,000 
soldiers  of  all  arms,  of  which  105,000  were  non-com- 
missioned officers,  and  30,000  officers.  It  was  the 
greatest  army  of  Europe  and  of  the  world,  consid- 
ered in  its  real  efficiency. 

While  Germany  has  no  longer  an  army,  France 
on  the  first  of  July,  1921,  had  under  arms  810,000 
men  of  which  38,473  were  officers,  therefore  many 
more  than  Germany  had  before  the  war.  Consider- 
ing her  situation  and  necessities  this  means  the  great- 
est military  force  which  has  been  seen  in  modern 
times  and  can  only  have  two  reasons :  either  military 
domination,  or  ruin.  The  military  budget  proposed 
for  the  present  year  in  the  ordinary  section  is  for 
2,782  million  francs,  besides  that  portion  paid  by 
Germany  for  the  army  of  occupation:  the  extraor- 
dinary section  of  the  same  budget  is  for  1,712  million 
francs,  besides  635  million  for  expenses  repayable 
for  the  maintenance  of  troops  of  occupation  in 
foreign  countries. 

Austria-Hungary  had  in  1913  a  total  of  34,000  of- 
ficers and  390,249  men :  the  states  which  have  arisen 
upon  the  ruins  of  her  empire  have  a  good  many 
more.  While  German-Austria  has  as  a  matter  of 
fact  only  21,700  men,  and  Hungary  has  only  35,000, 
Czecho-Slavakia  has  150,000  men  of  whom  10,000  are 
officers,  Jugo-Slavia  has  about  120,000  of  whom 
8,000  to  10,000  are  officers, 


138  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

But  the  two  Allies  of  France,  Belgium  and  Poland, 
Belgium  no  longer  neutral,  Poland  always  in  dis- 
order and  in  a  stale  of  continual  provocation  abroad 
and  of  increasing  anarchy  at  home,  have  in  their 
turn  armies  which  previous  to  the  war  could  have 
been  maintained  only  by  a  first-class  power.  Bel- 
gium has  doubled  her  peace  effectives,  which  now 
amount  to  113,500  men,  an  enormous  army  for  a 
population  which  is  about  equal  to  that  of  the  city  of 
New  York  or  London. 

Poland,  whose  economic  conditions  are  completely 
disastrous,  and  may  be  described  as  having  neither 
money  nor  credit,but  which  maintains  more  employees 
than  any  other  country  on  earth,  has  under  arms  not 
less  than  430,000  men,  and  often  many  more,  and 
possibly  has  to-day  many  more,  about  600,000.  Her 
treaty  with  France  imposes  on  her  military  obliga- 
tions, the  extension  of  which  can  not  be  compatible 
with  the  policy  of  a  country  desiring  peace.  Poland 
has  besides  vast  dreams  of  greatness  abroad,  and 
growing  ruin  in  the  interior.  She  enslaves  herself 
in  order  to  enslave  others,  and  pretends  in  her  dis- 
order to  control  and  dominate  much  more  intelligent 
and  cultured  peoples. 

Rumania  has  under  arms  160,000  men,  besides 
30,000  carabineers,  and  16,000  frontier  guards. 
G  reece  has,  particularly  on  account  of  her  undertak- 
ings in  Asia  Minor,  which  can  only  be  accounted  for 
on  the  score  of  her  unintelligent  nationalistic  exalta- 
tion, more  than  400,000  men  under  arms.  She  is 
suffocating  under  the  weight  of  heavy  armaments 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   139 

and  can  move  only  with  difficulty.     She  is  headed 
for  ruin. 

The  two  wards  of  the  Entente,  Greece  and  Poland, 
exactly  like  naughty  children,  pursue  a  policy  of 
greed  and  caprice.  Poland  is  not  the  result  of  her 
own  effort,  but  of  the  effort  of  the  Entente.  Greece 
never  found  the  way  to  contribute  heavily  to  the  war 
with  a  strong  army  and  after  the  war  has  the  largest 
army  which  she  has  ever  had  in  her  history. 

Great  Britain  and  Italy  are  the  only  two  countries 
which  have  largely  demobilized:  in  a  much  greater 
measure  Great  Britain.  It  is  calculated  that  Great 
Britain  has  under  arms  201,000  men,  of  which  15,030 
are  officers.  In  this  number  however  are  not  in- 
cluded 75,896  men  in  India  and  the  personnel  of  the 
air  force. 

In  Italy,  on  the  31st  of  July,  1921,  there  were 
under  arms  351,076  soldiers  and  18,138  officers:  in 
all  369,214,  of  which  however  56,529  were  carabi- 
neers carrying  out  duties  almost  exclusively  of  public 
order. 

Under  the  pressure  and  as  a  result  of  the  example 
of  the  states  which  are  creations  of  the  war,  those 
states  which  did  not  take  part  have  also  largely 
augmented  their  armies. 

So  that  now  that  the  conquered  are  no  longer  to 
be  considered  a  source  of  danger,  we  are  faced  with 
this  paradoxical  situation:  the  neutrals  during  the 
war  have  been  developing  their  armaments,  and  the 
conquerors  have  increased  theirs  out  of  all  propor- 
tion. 


140  THE  W  B  E(  IK  OF  EUROPE 

No  one  can  tell  what  may  be  the  position  of  Bol- 
shevik Russia;  probably  she  has  not  much  less  than 
a  million  of  men  under  arms;  since  in  a  communist 
regime  the  vagabonds  and  adventurers  find  the 
easiest  occupation  in  the  army. 

The  conquerors,  having  disarmed  the  conquered, 
have  imposed  their  economic  conditions,  their  ab- 
surd morality  and  territorial  humiliations  as  those 
imposed  on  Bulgaria,  Turkey  and  Hungary,  condi- 
tions which  are  sufficiently  difficult  to  maintain. 
And,  as  the  ferment  of  hate  develops,  the  conquerors 
do  not  disarm.  Above  all  the  little  states  do  not 
disarm,  who  have  wanted  too  much,  have  obtained 
too  much  and  now  do  not  know  how  to  preserve 
what  they  have.  In  many  countries  for  certain 
social  reasons  war  has  become  an  industry;  they 
live  on  the  state  of  war.  What  would  they  do  with- 
out a  state  of  war  1 

In  general,  then,  Europe  has  considerably  more 
men  under  arms  than  in  1913.  Not  only  has  it  not 
disarmed,  as  the  Entente  always  declared  would  be 
the  consequence  of  victory  through  the  principles 
of  democracy,  but  the  victors  are  always  leaning  to- 
ward further  armament.  The  more  difficult  it  be- 
comes to  maintain  the  conditions  of  the  peace, 
because  of  their  severity  and  their  absurdity,  the 
more  necessary  it  is  to  maintain  armies.  The  con- 
quered have  no  armies :  the  conquerors  are,  or  per- 
haps up  to  a  short  time  ago  were,  sure  that  the  big 
armies  would  serve  to  enforce  the  payment  of  the 
indemnities.  Now  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  ought  not 
to  serve  for  anything  else. 


CONQUEROKS  AND  CONQUERED   141 

At  the  Conference  of  London,  after  a  long  dis- 
cussion, in  February,  1920,  the  manifesto  was  drawn 
up  which  warned  Europe  of  the  perils  of  the  eco- 
nomic situation.  Lloyd  George  and  myself  were 
readily  agreed  that  the  gravest  dangers,  and  the 
principal  cause  of  high  prices  and  of  economic  dis- 
order, was  the  maintenance  of  large  armies  and  the 
continuation  of  the  state  of  war. 

A  Europe  divided  sharply  into  two  parts  can  not 
be  pacific,  even  after  the  conquered  have  yielded  up 
their  arms.  The  conquerors  are  bound  to  arm  them- 
selves because  of  their  own  restlessness,  from  the 
conviction  that  the  only  salvation  is  in  force,  which 
brings  about,  if  not  a  true  peace,  at  least  an  armed 
peace:  if  not  the  development  of  production  and 
exchange,  at  least  the  possibility  of  cutting  off  from 
the  markets  the  very  foundations  of  riches. 

Violence  begets  new  violence.  If  the  conditions 
of  the  peace  can  not  be  fulfilled,  other  heavier  con- 
ditions can  be  imposed.  In  France  irresponsible 
people  are  already  advocating  the  necessity  of 
permanently  occupying  the  Ruhr,  the  greatest  Ger- 
man center  for  the  production  of  coal,  and  are  not 
inclined  to  respect  the  plebiscite  of  Upper  Silesia. 

In  violation  of  the  treaty  in  the  years  1920  and 
1921  France  has  five  times  threatened  to  invade 
the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine.  In  March,  1920,  with- 
out the  consent  of  Italy  and  Great  Britain,  indeed 
in  direct  opposition  to  them,  she  occupied  Frank- 
fort and  Darmstadt.  I  was  at  the  head  of  the  Ital- 
ian Government  at  that  time  and  did  not  fail  to 


142  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

point  out  the  risk  and  danger  of  such  violent  action. 
In  July,  1920,  the  threat  of  another  invasion  forced 
Germany  to  yield.  In  March,  1921,  Duisburg, 
Ruhrort  and  Dusseldorf  were  occupied  on  empty 
pretexts  and  the  occupation  was  continued  even 
after  Germany  had  fulfilled  the  conditions  which 
had  been  imposed.  Again  in  April  and  May,  1921, 
Prance  threatened  to  reinvade  the  Ruhr  and  it  would 
seem  that  such  invasion  is  part  of  the  program  of 
the  French  metallurgical  industries  which  are  eager 
to  disorganize  Germany's  production  of  coal. 

When  in  a  single  year  three  invasions  of  the 
right  bank  of  the  Rhine  have  been  made  and  two 
others  have  been  threatened,  even  a  great  army  is 
not  sufficient.  Imperialistic  France,  exhausted  by 
war  and  her  territorial  problems,  is  constrained  to 
maintain  (and  to  make  Germany  maintain  for  her) 
an  army  larger  than  any  recorded  in  modern  his- 
tory. 

What  has  been  said  about  the  armies  is  true  also 
about  the  fleets.  There  is  a  race  toward  the  in- 
crease of  naval  armaments.  If  first  that  was  the 
preoccupation  of  the  conquered,  now  it  is  the  pre- 
occupation of  the  conquerors.  Since  the  war  the 
roles  have  merely  been  reversed  and  distrust  in- 
creased. 

The  state  of  mind  which  has  been  created  be- 
tween Great  Britain,  the  United  States  of  America 
and  Japan,  deserves  to  be  seriously  examined.  The 
race  for  naval  armaments  in  which  these  three  coun- 
tries have  entered  is  a  fact  to  give  us  pause  and  the 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   143 

competition  between  the  two  great  Anglo-Saxon 
peoples  can  not  be  other  than  harmful  to  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  great  war  which  has  been  fought,  was  at 
bottom  the  struggle  between  the  Germanic  races  and 
the  Slav  races :  it  was  fear  of  these  latter  and  not  of 
France  that  drove  Germany  to  war  and  precipitated 
events.  The  results  of  the  continental  war  however, 
are  the  suppression  of  Germany  which  lost,  as  well 
as  of  Russia  which  had  not  resisted,  and  France 
alone  has  gathered  the  fruits  of  the  situation.  If 
they  can  be  called  that,  among  the  thorns  which 
everywhere  surround  the  victory. 

But  the  war  was  decided  above  all  by  the  inter- 
vention of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  Great  Britain 
with  her  dominions,  the  United  States  of  America. 
Only  the  lack  of  political  sagacity  of  German  states- 
men made  possible  the  union  in  a  single  group  of 
peoples  whose  interests  were  fundamentally  diver- 
gent! Great  Britain,  Russia,  the  United  States  of 
America,  Japan,  France,  and  Italy. 

But  now  the  situation  in  Europe  and  especially 
that  in  Asia  is  creating  new  rivalries  and  this  finds 
expression  in  the  abuse  of  naval  armament.  The 
expenses  for  the  navies,  according  to  the  figures  of 
the  various  budgets  from  1914  to  1921,  have  risen 
in  the  United  States  of  America  from  702,000,000  of 
lire  to  2,166,000,000,  in  Great  Britain  from  1,218,000,- 
000,  to  2,109,000,000,  in  Japan  from  249,000,000  to 
1,250,000,000,  in  France  from  495,000,000  to  1,083,- 
000,000,    in    Italy    from    250,000,000    to    402,000,- 


144  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

000.  The  sums  proposed  for  new  constructions  in 
the  year  1921-22,  are  450,000,000  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  475,000,000  for  Great  Britain, 
281,000,000  for  Japan,  185,000,000  for  France,  and 
61,000,000  for  Italy. 

The  United  States  of  America  and  Great  Britain 
are  countries  of  great  resources :  they  can  stand  the 
strain.  But  Japan,  which  has  but  limited  resources, 
can  she  support  these  for  any  length  of  time  or 
must  we  assume  that  she  has  some  immediate  de- 
signs in  prospect? 

The  limitation  of  naval  armaments  has  been 
agreed  upon  and  accepted  as  a  matter  of  necessity. 
A  comparative  table  of  the  navies  in  1914  and  1921 
shows  that  the  fleets  of  the  conquering  countries 
are  very  much  more  powerful  than  they  were  be- 
fore the  war.  Nevertheless,  Russia,  and  Austria- 
Hungary  and  the  states  created  in  their  territories 
are  not  naval  powers:  Germany  has  lost  all  her 
fleet.  The  race  for  naval  armaments  concerns  es- 
pecially the  two  Anglo-Saxon  powers  and  Japan: 
the  race  for  land  armaments  concerns  all  the  con- 
querors of  Europe  and  especially  the  small  states. 

This  situation  can  not  fail  to  cause  anxiety;  but 
the  greatest  anxiety  arises  from  the  fact  that  the 
minor  states,  especially  those  which  took  no  part 
in  the  war,  are  daily  becoming  more  exacting  and 
putting  forth  new  aspirations. 

The  whole  system  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  is  of 
a  piece  with  the  mistake  made  in  the  case  of  Po- 
land.    Poland  was  not  created  as  the  noble  mani- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   145 

f estation  of  the  rights  of  nationality ;  Poland  is  not 
a  racial  unit.  It  is  a  great  state  which  in  its  present 
form  can  not  long  survive,  since  not  only  does  it 
contain  large  admixtures  of  foreign  elements,  but 
its  entire  population  lacks  the  elements  of  cohesion. 
Poland,  already  afflicted  by  too  large  an  Israelitic 
element,  can  not  possibly  assimilate  the  Germans, 
the  Russians,  and  the  Ukrainians  which  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles  has  unjustly  given  to  her  contrary  to 
the  explicit  declarations  of  Wilson. 

Poland,  to  be  sure,  did,  with  the  aid  of  the  En- 
tente, repel  the  Bolshevik  invasion  but  she  is  now 
in  a  state  of  permanent  anarchy:  she  consumes  and 
does  not  produce;  her  expenses  have  risen  to  fan- 
tastic proportions,  and  she  has  been  unable  to  con- 
trol her  income.  No  country  in  the  world  has  ever 
made  more  abuse  of  paper  currency:  her  paper 
money  has  probably  depreciated  more  than  that  of 
any  country  on  earth.  She  has  not  succeeded  in 
organizing  her  own  production  and  seeks  to  vitiate 
the  production  of  her  neighbors. 

The  whole  Treaty  of  Versailles  is  based  on  a 
vigorous  and  vital  Poland.  A  harmless  Germany, 
unable  to  unite  with  an  equally  harmless  German- 
Austria,  should  be  under  the  military  control  of 
France  and  Belgium  on  the  west,  and  of  Poland  on 
the  east.  Poland,  separating  Germany  from  Rus- 
sia, besides  imposing  on  Germany  the  territorial 
outrage  of  the  Danzig  corridor,  cuts  Germany  off 
from  any  possibility  of  expansion  and  development 
in  the  East.    Poland  has  been  conceived  as  a  great 


146  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

state.  A  Polish  nation  was  not  constituted;  a  Pol- 
ish military  state  was  constituted,  whose  principal 
function  is  to  be  that  of  irritating,  humiliating  and 
disorgani zing  Oe  rma  ny. 

Poland,  the  result  of  a  miracle  of  the  war,  (no 
one  could  foretell  the  simultaneous  fall  of  the  cen- 
tral  empires  and  of  the  Russian  Empire)  was 
formed  not  as  the  result  of  a  tenacious  endeavor, 
but  is  a  fortunate  accident,  a  just  reward  to  a  long 
suffering  people.  The  boundaries  of  Poland  at  one 
time  extended  to  the  Baltic  Sea  on  the  north,  the 
Carpathians  and  the  Dniester  in  the  south;  in  the 
east  her  territory  stretched  on  to  Smolensk,  and  in 
the  west  to  parts  of  Germany,  Brandenburg  and 
Pomerania.  The  new  patriots  dream  of  an  immense 
Poland,  the  Old  Poland  of  tradition,  and  further- 
more they  hope  to  descend  into  the  countries  of  the 
Ukraine  and  to  dominate  new  territories. 

It  is  easy  to  foresee  that,  sooner  or  later,  when 
the  Bolshevik  excesses  have  been  ended,  Russia  will 
reconstruct  herself.  Germany  in  spite  of  all  the 
attempts  to  break  her  up  and  crush  her  unity,  within 
thirty  or  forty  years  will  be  the  most  formidable 
ethnical  group  of  Continental  Europe.  What  will 
then  happen  to  a  Poland  which  pretends  to  divide 
two  peoples  who  represent  numerically  and  will 
represent  in  other  fields  also  the  greatest  forces  of 
the  Continental  Europe  of  to-morrow? 

Among  many  in  Fiance  there  is  the  old  concep- 
tion of  Napoleon  I  who  considered  the  whole  of 
European  politics  from  an  erroneous  point  of  view, 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   147 

that  of  a  lasting  French  hegemony  in  Europe,  when 
the  lasting  hegemony  of  peoples  is  no  longer  possi- 
ble. In  the  sad  solitude  of  his  exile  at  Saint  Helena, 
Napoleon  I  said  that  not  to  have  created  a  powerful 
Poland  as  a  keystone  of  the  European  edifice,  not 
to  have  destroyed  Prussia,  and  to  have  been  mis- 
taken in  regard  to  Russia,  were  the  three  great  er- 
rors of  his  life.  But  all  his  work  had  as  an  end  to 
put  the  life  of  Europe  under  the  control  of  France, 
and  was  necessarily  wrecked  by  reality,  which  does 
not  permit  the  lasting  mistake  of  a  single  nation 
which  places  herself  above  all  the  others  in  a  free 
and  progressive  Europe. 

If  the  policy  of  the  Entente  toward  Germany  and 
toward  the  conquered  countries,  does  not  corre- 
spond either  to  joint  declarations  made  during  the 
war,  or  to  the  promises  solemnly  made  by  Wilson, 
the  policy  toward  Russia  has  been  nothing  but  a 
series  of  mistakes.  In  fact  one  can  not  talk  of  a 
policy  of  the  Entente,  since  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  errors  committed  in  common,  Great  Britain, 
France  and  Italy  have  each  followed  their  own 
policy. 

In  his  sixth  point  of  the  famous  fourteen,  which 
have  now  been  besmirched  and  bedraggled  like  out- 
raged captive  women,  Wilson  said  on  January  8, 
1918,  that  the  treatment  meted  out  to  Russia  by  the 
sister  nations,  and  therefore  their  loyalty  in  assist- 
ing her  to  settle  herself,  should  be  the  stern  proof 
of  their  good  will.  They  were  to  show  that  they  did 
not  confound  their  own  interests,  or  rather  their 


148  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

selfish  desires,  with  what  should  be  done  for  Russia. 
The  proof  was  most  unfortunate. 

The  attitude  of  the  Entente  toward  Russia  has 
had  different  phases. 

In  the  first  phase,  the  prevailing  idea,  especially 
on  the  part  of  one  of  the  Allies,  was  to  send  military 
expeditions  in  conjunction  especially  with  Rumania 
and  Poland.  This  idea  was  immediately  abandoned 
on  account  of  its  very  absurdity. 

In  the  second  phase,  the  greatest  hopes  were 
placed  in  the  blockade:  of  completely  isolating  Rus- 
sia, and  depriving  her  of  every  possibility  of  trade, 
even  though  she  no  longer  had  any.  At  the  same 
time  war  on  the  part  of  Poland  and  Rumania  was 
encouraged,  to  help  the  attempt  which  the  men  of 
the  old  regime  were  making  in  the  interior.  France 
alone  reached  the  point  of  officially  recognizing  the 
czarist  undertaking  of  General  Wrangel. 

Lloyd  George,  with  the  exception  of  some  initial 
doubts,  always  had  the  clearest  ideas  in  regard  to 
Russia,  and  I  never  found  myself  in  disagreement 
with  him  in  judging  the  men  and  the  Russian  situa- 
tion. The  situation,  furthermore,  could  be  readily 
understood  by  any  calm  and  open-minded  intelli- 
gence. 

For  my  part  I  always  tried  to  follow  that  policy 
which  would  best  bring  about  the  most  useful  re- 
sult with  the  least  damage.  After  the  war  the  work- 
ing masses  in  Europe  had  the  greatest  illusions 
about  Russian  communism  and  the  Bolshevik  or- 
ganization.   Every  military  expedition  against  Rus- 


CONQUEROES  AND  CONQUERED   149 

sia  tended  to  give  the  people  the  feeling  not  that 
war  was  being  waged  upon  the  enemy,  but  that  an 
attempt  to  reorganize  society  on  a  communistic 
basis  was  being  suppressed  by  violence  and  force. 
I  have  always  thought  that  the  dictatorship  of  the 
proletariat,  that  is,  the  dictatorship  of  ignorance 
and  incapacity,  would  necessarily  lead  to  disaster, 
and  that  hunger  and  death  would  follow  violence. 
There  are  in  the  popular  mind  serious  errors  whose 
falsity  must  be  demonstrated  in  practise  before 
civilization  can  profit  thereby.  Our  propaganda 
would  have  served  nothing  without  the  reality  of 
ruin.  Only  the  death  by  hunger  of  millions  of  men 
in  communist  Russia  will  convince  the  working 
masses  in  Europe  and  America  that  the  experiment 
of  Russia  is  not  to  be  followed  and  rather  is  to  be 
avoided  at  any  cost.  To  suppress  in  blood  after  an 
unjust  war  the  communist  attempt,  even  if  it  were 
possible,  would  have  meant  ruin  for  Western  civili- 
zation. 

On  repeated  occasions  I  have  advised  Rumania 
and  Poland  not  to  make  any  attempt  against  Russia 
and  to  limit  themselves  to  defense.  Every  unjust 
aggression  on  the  part  of  Bolshevik  Russia  would 
have  found  the  Entente  disposed  to  further  sacrifice 
to  save  two  free  nations,  but  any  provocation  on 
their  part  would  merely  have  weakened  the  general 
solidarity. 

When  I  assumed  the  direction  of  the  government 
in  June,  1919,  an  Italian  military  expedition  was 
under  orders  for  Georgia.    The  English  troops,  who 


150  Til  K  WKKCK  OF  EUROPE 

were  in  small  numbers,  wore  withdrawing;  Italy 
had,  with  the  consent  of  the  Allies,  and  partly  by 
her  own  desire,  prepared  a  big  military  expedition. 
A  considerable  number  of  divisions  were  ready,  as 
also  were  the  ships,  to  commence  the  transport. 
Georgia  is  a  country  of  extraordinary  natural  re- 
sources, and  it  was  thought  that  she  would  be  able  to 
furnish  Italy  with  a  great  number  of  raw  materials 
which  she  lacked.  What  surprised  me  was  that  not 
only  men  of  the  government,  but  intelligent  finan- 
ciers and  men  of  very  advanced  ideas,  were  con- 
vinced supporters  of  this  expedition. 

However,  confronted  by  much  opposition,  I  im- 
mediately renounced  this  undertaking,  and  re- 
nounced it  in  a  definite  form,  limiting  myself  to  en- 
couraging every  commercial  enterprise. 

Certainly  the  Allies  could  not  suggest  anything 
unfriendly  to  Italy;  but  the  effect  of  the  expedi- 
tion was  to  put  Italy  directly  at  variance  with  the 
government  of  Moscow,  to  launch  her  upon  an  ad- 
venture of  which  it  was  impossible  to  foresee  the 
consequences. 

In  fact,  not  long  afterward  Georgia  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Bolsheviks,  who  sent  there  an  army  of 
125,000  men,  and  since  then  she  has  not  been  able 
to  rid  herself  of  them.  If  Italy  had  made  that  ex- 
pedition, she  would  have  been  engaged  in  a  frightful 
military  adventure,  with  most  difficult  and  costly 
transport  in  a  theater  of  war  of  insuperable  diffi- 
culty.   To  what  end? 

Georgia  before  the  war  formed  part  of  the  Eus- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   151 

sian  Empire,  and  no  country  of  the  Entente  had 
considered  that  unjust.  Further,  as  though  the  vast 
empire  and  the  dominion  of  the  Caucasus  were  not 
enough  for  Russia,  the  Entente  with  monstrous  con- 
descension had  given  to  Russia  Constantinople  and 
the  Straits  and  a  huge  zone  in  Asia  Minor.  How 
could  you  take  away  from  Russia  a  territory  that 
was  legitimately  hers?  And  vice  versa,  if  Georgia 
and  the  other  states  of  the  Caucasus  had  sufficient 
strength  to  live  autonomously,  how  can  you  dominate 
Aryan  people  who  have  risen  to  a  notable  state  of 
development  f 

To  go  to  Georgia  inevitably  meant  war  with  Rus- 
sia for  Italy,  and  one,  moreover,  fraught  with  ex- 
traordinary difficulties  of  transport  in  men  and 
materials.  In  fact,  later,  the  Government  of  Mos- 
cow, as  we  have  said,  succeeded  in  invading  not  only 
Georgia  but  nearly  all  the  republics  of  the  Cau- 
casus. And  at  San  Remo,  discussing  the  possibility 
of  an  expedition  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain,  France 
and  Italy  to  defend  at  least  the  oil  production,  after 
the  report  of  a  military  committee  presided  over  by 
Marshal  Foch,  the  conclusion  was  quickly  and  easily 
arrived  at  that  it  was  better  to  leave  the  matter 
alone. 

Italy  had  already  made  an  expedition  into  Al- 
bania, the  reason  for  which  beyond  the  military 
necessities  for  the  period  of  the  war  has  never  been 
understood,  except  that  of  spending  a  huge  sum 
without  receiving  the  gratitude  of  the  Albanians; 
an  expedition  in  Georgia  would  have  done  harm,  the 


152  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

consequence  of  which  can  not  he  readily  measured; 
it  might,  indeed,  have  meant  ruin. 

Even  those  minds  that  are  most  blinded  by  prej- 
udice and  hate  recognize  the  complete  failure  of  the 
Russian  communist  system.  The  so-called  dictator- 
ship of  the  proletariat  is  reduced  in  practise  to  a 
military  dictatorship  of  a  communist  group  which 
represents  only  a  fraction  of  the  working  classes 
and  that  not  the  best.  The  Bolshevik  Government  is 
in  the  hands  of  a  small  minority  in  which  fanati- 
cism has  taken  the  place  of  character.  Everything 
that  represented  the  work  of  the  past  has  been 
destroyed  and  they  have  not  known  how  to  con- 
struct anything.  The  great  industries  have  fallen 
and  production  is  paralyzed.  Russia  has  lived  for 
a  long  time  on  the  residues  of  her  capitalistic  pro- 
duction rather  than  on  new  production.  The  pro- 
ductivity of  her  agricultural  and  industrial  work 
has  been  killed  by  communism,  and  the  effectiveness 
of  labor  has  been  reduced  to  a  minimum.  The  Rus- 
sian people  are  living  in  unparalleled  misery,  and 
entire  sections  are  dying  of  hunger.  The  commun- 
ist regime  in  a  short  time  has  precipitated  such  dam- 
age and  such  misery  as  no  system  of  oppression 
could  achieve  in  centuries.  It  is  the  proof,  if  any 
were  necessary,  that  the  form  of  communist  pro- 
duction is  not  only  harmful  but  not  even  lasting. 
The  economists  say  that  it  is  absurd,  but,  given  the 
collective  madness  which  has  attacked  some  people, 
nothing  is  absurd  except  to  hope  for  the  rapid  re- 
covery of  nations  which  have  gone  so  far  astray. 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   153 

If  any  country  could  be  the  scene  of  a  communist 
experiment  it  was  Russia.  Imperial  Russia  repre- 
sented the  most  extensive  contiguous  territory  that 
a  state  ever  occupied  in  all  history's  records  of  vast 
empires.  Under  the  czars  a  territory  that  was 
almost  three  times  the  size  of  the  United  States  of 
America  was  occupied  by  a  people  who,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  cases  of  individual  revolt,  were 
accustomed  to  the  most  servile  obedience.  Under 
Nicholas  II  a  few  men  exercised  rule  in  a  most 
despotic  form  over  more  than  one  hundred  and 
eighty  million  individuals  spread  over  an  immense 
territory.  All  obeyed  blindly.  Centralization  was 
so  great,  and  the  obedience  to  the  central  power  so 
absolute,  that  no  hostile  demonstration  was  toler- 
ated for  long.  The  communist  regime  therefore  was 
able  to  count  not  only  on  the  apathy  of  the  Russian 
people  but  also  on  the  blindest  obedience.  To  this 
fundamental  condition  of  success,  to  a  government 
that  must  regulate  production  despotically,  was 
joined  another  even  greater  condition  of  success. 
Russia  is  one  of  those  countries  which,  like  the 
United  States  of  America,  China  and  Brazil  (the 
four  greatest  countries  of  the  earth,  not  counting 
the  English  dominions  with  much  thinner  popula- 
tions), possess  within  their  own  territories  every- 
thing necessary  for  life.  Imagine  a  country  of  self- 
contained  economy,  that  lives  entirely  upon  her  own 
resources  and  trades  with  no  one  (and  that  is  what 
happened  in  Russia  as  a  result  of  the  blockade). 
Russia  has  the  possibility  of  realizing  within  her- 


154  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

self  the  most  prosperous  conditions  of  existence. 
She  has  in  her  territories  everything:  grain,  textile 
fibers,  combustibles  of  every  sort;  Russia  is  one 
of  the  greatest  reserves,  if  not  the  greatest  reserve, 
in  the  world.  Well,  the  communist  organization 
with  its  bureaucratic  centralization,  which  com- 
munism must  necessarily  carry  with  it,  was  suffi- 
cient to  arrest  every  form  of  production.  Russia, 
which  before  could  give  grain  to  all,  is  dying  of 
hunger;  Russia,  which  had  sufficient  quantities 
of  coal  for  herself  and  could  give  petroleum  to 
all  Europe,  can  no  longer  move  her  railways ;  Russia, 
which  had  wool,  flax,  linen,  and  could  have  easily 
increased  her  cotton  cultivation  in  the  Caucasus, 
can  not  even  clothe  the  soldiers  and  functionaries  of 
the  Bolshevik  State.  The  stimulus  to  individual 
effort  has  died;  few  work;  the  peasants  work  only 
to  produce  what  their  families  need ;  the  workers  in 
the  city  are  chiefly  engaged  in  meetings  and  political 
reunions.  All  wish  to  live  upon  the  state ;  and  pro- 
duction, organized  autocratically  and  bureaucrati- 
cally,  every  day  dries  up  and  withers  a  bit  more. 

To  those  who  read  the  collection  of  laws  issued  by 
the  Bolshevik  Government,  many  institutions  ap- 
pear not  only  reasonable,  but  also  full  of  interest 
and  justice.  Also  many  laws  of  the  absolute  gov- 
ernments of  past  regimes  appear  intelligent  and 
noble.  But  the  law  has  not  in  itself  any  power  of 
creation;  it  regulates  relations,  does  not  create 
them.  It  can  even  take  away  wealth  from  some  and 
give  it  to  others,  but  can  not  create  the  wealth. 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   155 

When  the  individual  interest  begins  to  lack,  labor, 
which  is  pain  and  suffering,  lags  and  does  not  pro- 
duce. To  begin  with,  it  weakens  in  the  short  days 
when  energy  is  avoided,  and  then  it  stops  through 
incapacity  for  energy.  The  old  fundamental  truth 
is  that  in  all  the  Aryan  tongues  the  words  which 
indicate  work  have  the  same  root  as  the  words 
which  denote  pain.  Among  the  great  mass  of  mankind 
work  is  only  done  by  necessity  or  under  the  stimulus 
of  individual  interest  which  goads  men  on  to  pro- 
duction of  wealth.  Men  toil  for  riches;  and  there- 
fore in  the  Aryan  tongues  wealth  means  dominion 
and  power. 

Two  years  ago  I  wanted,  in  spite  of  the  opinion 
of  others,  to  consent  to  the  Italian  Socialists  visit- 
ing Russia.  I  was  convinced  that  nothing  would 
have  served  better  to  break  in  Italy  the  sympathy 
for  Russia,  or  rather  the  illusions  of  the  revolution- 
aries, than  the  sight  of  famine  and  disorder.  Never 
did  the  Press  of  my  country,  or  the  greater  part  of 
it,  criticize  with  more  violence  a  proposal  which  I 
considered  to  be  both  wise  and  prudent.  I  am  glad 
to  state  that  I  was  right,  and  that,  maybe  through 
the  uncertainties  and  the  lessons  of  those  who  had 
spread  the  illusions,  the  Italian  Socialists  returned 
from  Russia  were  bound  to  recognize  that  the  com- 
munist experiment  was  the  complete  ruin  of  the 
Russia  people.  No  conservative  propaganda  could 
have  been  more  efficacious  than  the  vision  of  the 
truth. 

I   am  convinced  that   the   hostile   attitude,   and 


156  THE  WRECK  OP  EUROPE 

almost  persecution,  on  the  pari  of  the  Entente  rather 
helped  the  Bolshevik  Government,  whose  claims  to 
discredit  were  already  so  numerous  thai  it  was  not 
necessary  to  nullify  them  by  an  unjust  and  evident 
persecution. 

The  Bolshevik  Government  could  not  he  recog- 
nized :  it  gave  no  guarantees  of  loyalty,  and  too  often 
its  representatives  had  violated  the  rights  of  hos- 
pitality and  intrigued  through  fanatics  and  excited 
people  to  extend  the  revolution.  Revolution  and 
government  are  two  terms  that  can  not  co-exist. 
But  not  to  recognize  the  government  of  the  Soviet 
does  not  mean  that  the  conditions  of  such  recogni- 
tion must  include  that  the  war  debt  shall  be  guar- 
anteed, and,  worse  still,  the  pre-war  debt,  or  that 
the  gold  resources  and  the  metals  of  Russia  shall 
be  given  as  a  guarantee  of  that  debt.  This  morality, 
exclusively  financial  and  plutocratic,  can  not  be  the 
base  of  international  relations  in  a  period  in  wThich 
humanity,  after  the  sorrows  of  the  war,  has  the 
annoyance  of  a  peace  which  no  one  foresaw  and 
of  which  very  few  in  the  early  days  understood  the 
dangers. 

Even  when  there  wras  a  tendency  favorable  to  the 
recognition  of  the  republic  of  the  Soviets,  I  was 
always  decidedly  %against  it.  It  is  impossible  to 
recognize  a  state  which  bases  all  its  relations  on 
violence,  and  which  in  its  relations  with  foreign 
states  seeks,  or  has  almost  always  sought,  to  carry 
out  revolutionary  propaganda.  Even  when,  yield- 
ing to  an  impulse  which  it  wTas  not  possible  to  avoid 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   157 

— in  the  new  Italian  Chamber,  after  the  elections  of 
1919  not  only  the  Socialists,  but  above  all  the 
Catholic  popular  party  and  the  party  of  the  Rinno- 
vamento,  of  which  the  ex-soldiers  especially  formed 
part,  voted  unanimously  an  order  of  the  day  for  the 
recognition  of  the  actual  government  of  Russia — 
I  did  not  think  it  right  to  give,  and  did  not  give, 
effect  to  that  vote,  impulsively  generous,  which 
would  have  invested  Italy  with  the  responsibility  of 
recognizing,  even  if  it  were  de  facto,  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Soviet. 

I  have  always,  however,  rebelled  and  would  never 
give  my  consent  to  any  military  undertakings 
against  Russia,  not  even  to  a  participation  in  the 
undertakings  of  men  of  the  old  regime.  It  was  easy 
to  foresee  that  the  population  would  not  have  fol- 
lowed them  and  that  the  undertakings  were  doomed 
to  failure.  However,  all  the  attempts  at  military 
revolts  and  counter-revolutions  were  encouraged 
with  supplies  of  arms  and  material.  But  in  1920  all 
the  military  undertakings,  in  spite  of  the  help  given, 
failed  one  after  another.  In  February  the  attempt 
of  Admiral  Koltchak  failed  miserably,  and  in  March 
that  of  General  Judenic.  So  too  with  Denikin.  All 
the  hopes  of  the  restoration  were  centered  in  Gen- 
eral Wrangel.  The  only  grand  duke  with  any  claim 
to  military  authority  also  sent  to  tell  me  that  this 
was  a  serious  attempt  with  probability  of  success. 
General  Wrangel,  in  fact,  reunited  the  scattered 
forces  of  the  old  regime  and  occupied  in  force  a 
large  territory.    France  not  only  recognized  in  the 


158  Till:  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

government  of  Wrangel  the  legitimate  representa- 
tive of  Russia,  but  accredited  her  official  repre- 
sentatives to  him.  In  November,  1920,  even  the 
army  of  Wrangel,  which  appeared  to  be  of  granite, 
was  broken  up.  Poland,  through  alternating 
vicissitudes,  has  shown  the  power  of  resistance,  but 
has  shown  that  she  has  no  offensive  power  against 
Russia.  So  all  the  attempts  at  restoration  have 
broken  down,  one  after  another. 

One  of  the  greatest  errors  of  the  Entente  has  been 
to  treat  Russia  on  many  occasions,  not  as  a  fallen 
friend,  but  as  a  conquered  enemy.  Nothing  has 
been  more  deplorable  than  to  have  considered  as 
Russia  the  men  of  the  old  regime,  who  have  been 
treated  for  a  long  time  as  the  representatives  of  an 
existing  state  when  that  state  no  longer  existed. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  Bolshevik  Government 
transforms  itself  and  gives  guarantees  to  the  civil- 
ized nations  not  to  conduct  revolutionary  agitation 
in  foreign  countries,  to  maintain  the  pledges  she 
assumes,  and  to  respect  the  liberty  of  citizens;  the 
United  States  of  America,  Great  Britain  and  Italy 
would  recognize  her  at  once.  But  France  has  an 
entirely  different  point  of  view.  She  will  not  give 
any  recognition  unless  the  creditors  of  the  old 
regime  are  guaranteed.  This  is  an  absolutely  un- 
just and  plutocratic  point  of  view. 

In  June,  1920,  the  Government  of  Moscow  sent 
some  gold  to  Sweden  to  purchase  indispensable 
goods.  Millerand,  President  of  the  Council  of  Min- 
isters and  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  declared 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   159 

to  the  minister  of  Sweden  at  Paris  that  if  his  gov- 
ernment consented  to  receive  Russian  gold  it  would 
be  acting  as  a  receiver  of  stolen  goods.  He  then 
telegraphed  to  the  minister  of  finance  at  Stockholm 
regretting  that  the  government  and  public  opinion 
in  Sweden  did  not  consider  the  legal  claims  of 
French  creditors  of  the  old  Russian  regime  suffi- 
ciently binding  to  prevent  the  selling  of  Swedish 
goods  for  Russian  gold.  He  added  at  the  end  that 
the  association  of  creditors  could  utilize  the  news 
in  telegram  No.  355,  in  which  the  Swedish  Govern- 
ment gave  notice  of  the  transaction  and  that  they 
could  make  seizure  of  Russian  gold  sent  to  Sweden. 

This  telegram,  better  than  any  speech,  shows  the 
diversity  of  opinion. 

The  Bolshevik  Government  may  be  so  immoral 
that  we  can  not  recognize  it  until  it  gives  serious 
guarantees.  But  if  the  Government  of  Moscow 
sends  a  little  of  the  gold  that  remains,  or  has  re- 
mained, to  buy  goods,  what  right  have  we  to 
sequestrate  the  gold  in  the  interests  of  the  creditors 
of  the  old  regime? 

The  new  regime,  born  after  the  revolution,  may 
refuse  to  recognize  the  debts  of  the  old  regime  and 
annul  them.  But  this  will  not  prevent  our  having 
relations  with  it. 

With  our  absurd  demands  we  have  forced  Ger- 
many to  ruin  her  circulating  medium.  This  already 
amounts  to  about  one  hundred  billion  of  marks;  if 
to-morrow  it  amounts  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  to 
two  hundred  it  will  be  necessary  to  annul  it,  very 


160  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

much  the  same  as  was  done  in  the  case  of  the 
assignats.  Is  this  a  sufficient  reason  for  not  recog- 
nizing Germany? 

The  new  plutocratic  conception,  which  lies  behind 
the  policy  of  France,  is  not  lasting,  and  the  people 
distrust  it. 

Bolshevism,  as  I  have  repeatedly  stated,  can  not 
be  judged  by  our  Western  eyes :  it  is  not  a  popular 
and  revolutionary  movement;  it  is  the  religious 
fanaticism  of  the  orthodox  Eastern  mind  grafted  on 
the  trunk  of  czarist  despotism. 

Italy  is  the  country  which  suffers  most  from  the 
lack  of  continuous  relations  with  Russia  in  so  far 
that  almost  all  Italian  commerce,  and  in  consequence 
the  prices  of  freight  and  goods  have  been  for  almost 
half  a  century  regulated  by  the  traffic  with  the 
Black  Sea. 

Ships  that  leave  England  fully  laden  with  goods 
for  Italy  generally  continue  to  the  Black  Sea,  where 
they  fill  up  with  grain,  petroleum,  etc.,  and  then 
return  to  England,  after  having  taken  fresh  cargoes 
in  Italy  and  especially  iron  in  Spain.  It  was  pos- 
sible in  Italy  for  long  periods  of  time  to  obtain  most 
favorable  freights  and  have  coal  at  almost  the  same 
price  as  in  England.  The  voyages  of  the  ships  were 
made,  both  coming  and  going,  fully  laden. 

The  situation  of  Russia,  therefore,  hurts  espe- 
cially Italy.  Great  Britain  has  Mediterranean  inter- 
ests ;  France  is  partly  a  Mediterranean  nation ;  Italy 
is  altogether  a  Mediterranean  nation. 

Although  Italy  has  a  particular  interest  in  reop- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   161 

ening  relations  with  Russia,  the  Italian  Government 
has  understood  that  the  best  and  shortest  way  is 
not  to  recognize  the  Government  of  Moscow.  But 
Italy  will  never  subordinate  her  recognition  to 
plutocratic  considerations.  Whatever  government 
there  may  be  in  Italy,  it  will  never  associate  itself 
with  actions  directed  to  compelling  Russia,  in  order 
to  be  recognized,  to  guarantee  the  payment  of 
obligations  assumed  previous  to  the  war  and  the 
revolution.  Civilization  has  already  suppressed 
corporal  punishment  for  insolvent  debtors;  and 
slavery,  from  which  individuals  are  released,  should 
not  be  imposed  on  nations  by  democracies  which  say 
they  are  civilized. 

The  fall  of  the  communistic  organization  in  Rus- 
sia is  inevitable.  Very  probably  from  the  immense 
revolutionary  catastrophe  which  has  hit  Russia 
there  will  spring  up  the  diffusion  of  a  regime  of 
small  landed  proprietors.  Whatever  is  contrary  to 
human  nature  is  not  lasting,  and  communism  can 
only  accumulate  misery,  and  on  its  ruins  will  arise 
new  forms  of  life  which  we  can  not  yet  define.  But 
Bolshevik  Russia  can  still  rely  upon  two  elements 
which  we  do  not  habitually  take  into  account:  the 
apathy  and  indolence  of  the  people  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  strength  of  the  military  organization  on  the 
other.  No  other  people  would  have  resigned  itself 
to  the  intense  misery  and  to  the  infinite  sufferings 
which  tens  of  millions  of  Russians  endure  without 
opposition.  But  still  in  the  midst  of  so  much  misery 
no  other  people  would  have  known  how  to  maintain 


162  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

a  powerful  and  disciplined  army  such  as  is  the  army 
of  revolutionary  Russia. 

The  Russian  people  have  never  had  any  sym- 
pathy for  the  military  undertakings  which  the  En- 
tente has  aided.  During  some  of  the  meetings  of 
premiers  at  Paris  and  London  I  had  occasion,  in  the 
sittings  of  the  conferences,  to  speak  with  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  new  states,  especially  those  from 
the  Caucasus.  They  were  all  agreed  in  considering 
that  the  action  of  the  men  of  the  old  regime,  and 
especially  Denikin,  was  directed  at  the  suppression 
of  the  independent  states  and  to  the  return  of  the 
old  forms,  and  they  attributed  to  this  the  aversion 
of  the  Russian  people  to  them. 

Certainly  it  is  difficult  to  speak  of  Russia  where 
there  exists  no  longer  a  free  Press  and  the  only 
interest  of  the  people  lies  in  preventing  hunger 
from  killing  them.  Although  it  is  a  disastrous  or- 
ganization, the  organization  of  the  Soviet  remains 
still  the  only  one,  for  which  it  is  not  possible  im- 
mediately to  substitute  another.  Much  time  and  a 
complete  change  of  front  will  be  necessary  before 
the  Russian  people  can  again  slowly  enter  into 
international  life. 

The  peasants,  who  form  the  enormous  mass  of 
the  Russian  people,  look  with  terror  on  the  old 
regime.  They  have  occupied  the  land  and  intend 
to  keep  it ;  they  do  not  want  the  return  of  the  great 
Russian  land-owners  who  possessed  lands  covering 
provinces  and  were  even  ignorant  of  their  posses- 
sions.    One  of  the  causes  that  has  permitted  Bol- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   163 

shevism  to  last  is,  as  I  have  said,  the  attitude  of 
the  Entente,  which  on  many  occasions  has  shown 
the  greatest  sympathy  for  the  men  of  the  old  regime. 
The  czar  of  Russia  was  an  insignificant  man,  all 
the  grand  dukes  were  persons  without  dignity  and 
without  credit,  and  the  court  and  government 
abounded  in  unscrupulous  men  —  adventurers, 
thieves,  and  drunkards.  If  the  Bolshevik  Govern- 
ment has  spelled  ruin,  no  one  can  deny  that  a  great 
part  of  the  blame  belongs  to  the  old  regime,  the  re- 
turn of  which  no  honest  man  desires. 

To  allow  Poland  to  occupy  large  tracts  of  purely 
Russian  territory  was  a  no  less  serious  error. 

There  are,  therefore,  in  Europe  so  many  causes 
of  unrest  that  they  are  a  matter  of  concern  not  only 
to  the  conquered  countries  but  to  the  conquering 
countries  as  well.  We  have  already  seen  how  Ger- 
many and  the  states  which  form  part  of  her  group 
can  not  now  any  longer  represent  a  danger  of  war 
for  many  years  to  come,  and  that  none  the  less 
the  victorious  countries  and  new  states  continue  to 
arm  themselves  in  a  most  formidable  manner.  We 
have  seen  what  an  element  of  disorder  Poland  has 
become  and  how  the  policy  of  the  Entente  toward 
Russia  has  constituted  a  permanent  danger. 

But  all  Europe  is  still  uncertain  and  the  ground 
is  so  shifting  that  any  new  construction  threatens 
ruin.  Austria,  Hungary,  Bulgaria,  Turkey,  can  not 
live  under  the  conditions  imposed  on  them  by  the 
treaties.  But  the  new  states  for  the  most  part  are 
themselves  in  a  sufficiently  serious  position. 


164  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

With  the  exception  of  Finland  all  the  other  states 
which  have  arisen  on  the  ruins  of  the  Russian  Em- 
pire  are  in  serious  difficulty.  If  Esthonia  and 
Lithuania  are  in  a  fairly  tolerable  situation  Latvia 
is  thoroughly  ruined  and  hunger  and  tuberculosis 
rule  almost  everywhere,  as  in  many  districts  of  Po- 
land and  Russia.  At  Riga  hunger  and  disease  have 
caused  enormous  losses  among  the  population. 
Recently  15,000  children  were  in  an  extremely 
serious  physical  and  mental  condition.  In  a  single 
dispensary,  of  663  children  who  were  brought  for 
treatment  151  were  under-nourished,  229  were 
scrofulous,  66  anemic,  and  217  suffering  from 
rickets.  The  data  published  in  England  and  the 
United  States  and  those  of  the  Red  Cross  of  Geneva 
are  terrible. 

Even  with  the  greatest  imagination  it  is  difficult 
to  think  how  Hungary  and  Austria  can  live  and 
carry  out,  even  in  the  smallest  degree,  the  obliga- 
tions imposed  by  the  treaties.  By  a  moral  paradox, 
besides  living  they  must  indemnify  the  victors,  ac- 
cording to  the  Treaties  of  St.  Germain  and  the 
Trianon,  for  all  the  losses  which  the  war  has  brought 
in  its  train.  For  it  is  held  that  the  war  was  caused 
by  Austria  and  Hungary  and  that  the  victors  only 
suffered  from  it. 

Hungary  has  undergone  the  greatest  occupation 
of  her  territories  and  her  wealth.  This  poor  great 
country,  which  saved  both  civilization  and  Chris- 
tianity, has  been  treated  with  a  bitterness  that  noth- 
ing can  explain  except  the  greed  of  those  surround- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   165 

ing  her,  and  the  fact  that  the  weaker  people,  seeing 
rJhe  stronger  overcome,  wish  and  insist  that  she  shall 
be  reduced  to  impotence.  Nothing,  in  fact,  can 
justify  the  measures  of  violence  and  the  depreda- 
tions committed  in  Magyar  territory.  For  a  long 
while  no  one  knew  what  the  Rumanian  occupation 
in  Hungary,  with  its  systematic  plundering  and  its 
systematic  destruction,  amounted  to.  The  stern 
rebuke  which  Lloyd  George  addressed  in  London 
to  the  premier  of  Rumania  was,  however,  entirely 
justified.  After  the  war  every  one  wanted  some 
sacrifice  from  Hungary,  and  no  one  dared  to  say  a 
word  of  peace  or  good  will  for  her.  When  I  tried  it 
was  too  late.  The  victors  hated  Hungary  for  her 
proud  defense.  The  adherents  of  Socialism  do  not 
love  her  because  she  had  to  resist,  under  more  than 
difficult  conditions,  internal  and  external  Bolshe- 
vism. The  international  financiers  hate  her  because 
of  the  acts  of  violence  committed  against  the  Jews. 
So  Hungary  suffers  all  the  injustices  without  de- 
fense, all  the  miseries  without  help,  and  all  the  in- 
trigues without  resistance. 

Before  the  war  Hungary  had  an  area  almost 
equal  to  that  of  Italy,  282,870  square  kilometers, 
with  a  population  of  18,264,533  inhabitants.  The 
Treaty  of  Trianon  reduced  her  territory  to  91,114 
kilometers — that  is,  32.3  per  cent. — and  the  popula- 
tion to  7,481,954,  or  41  per  cent.  It  was  not  suffi- 
cient to  cut  off  from  Hungary  the  populations  which 
were  not  ethnically  Magyar.  "Without  any  reason 
1,084,447    Magyars    have    been    handed    over    to 


166  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Czecho-Slovakia,  457,597  to  Jugo-Slavia,  1,704,851 
to  Rumania.  Also  other  sections  of  the  population 
have  been  detached  without  reason. 

Among  all  the  belligerents  Hungary  perhaps  is 
the  country  which  in  comparison  with  the  popula- 
tion lias  had  the  greatest  number  of  dead;  the  mon- 
archy of  the  Hapsburgs  knew  that  they  could  count 
on  the  bravery  of  the  Magyars,  and  they  sent  them 
to  destruction  in  all  the  most  bloody  battles.  So  the 
little  people  gave  over  500,000  dead  and  an  enor- 
mous number  of  wounded  and  sick. 

The  territories  taken  from  Hungary  represent 
two-thirds  of  her  mineral  wealth ;  the  production  of 
three  million  quint ali  (300,000  tons)  of  gold  and 
silver  is  entirely  lost;  the  great  production  of  salt 
is  also  lost  to  her  (about  250,000  tons).  The  pro- 
duction of  iron  ore  is  reduced  by  19  per  cent.,  of  an- 
thracite by  14  per  cent.,  of  lignite  by  70  per  cent. ;  of 
the  2,029  factories,  hardly  1,241  have  remained  to 
Hungary;  more  than  three-quarters  of  the  magnifi- 
cent railway  wealth  has  been  given  away. 

Hungary  at  the  same  time  has  lost  her  greater 
resources  in  agriculture  and  cattle  breeding. 

The  capital,  henceforth,  too  large  for  a  too  small 
state,  carries  on  amid  the  greatest  difficulties,  and 
there  congregate  the  most  pitiable  of  the  Transyl- 
vanian  refugees  and  those  from  other  lost  regions. 

The  vital  statistics  of  Hungary,  which  up  to  a 
few  years  ago  were  excellent,  are  now  alarming. 
The  mortality  among  the  children  and  the  mortality 
from  tuberculosis  have  become  alarming.    At  Buda- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   167 

pest,  even  after  the  war,  the  number  of  deaths  sur- 
passes the  number  of  births.  The  statistics  pub- 
lished by  Doctor  Ferenczi  prove  that  the  number  of 
children  afflicted  with  rickets  and  tuberculosis 
reaches  in  Budapest  the  terrific  figure  of  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  in  a  population  of  about  two 
millions.  It  is  said  that  practically  all  the  new-born 
in  recent  years,  partly  through  the  privations  of  the 
mothers  and  partly  from  the  lack  of  milk,  are 
tubercular. 

The  conditions  of  life  are  so  serious  that  there  is 
no  comparison;  some  prices  have  only  risen  five  to 
tenfold,  but  very  many  from  thirty  to  fifty  and  even 
higher.  Grain,  which  before  the  war  cost  thirty-one 
crowns,  costs  now  five  hundred  crowns;  corn  has 
passed  from  seventeen  to  two  hundred  and  twenty 
and  two  hundred  and  fifty  crowns.  A  kilogram  of 
rice,  which  used  to  cost  seventy  centimes,  can  be 
found  now  only  at  eighty  crowns.  Sugar,  coffee  and 
milk  are  at  prices  that  are  absolutely  prohibitive. 

Of  the  financial  situation  it  is  almost  useless  to 
speak.  The  documents  presented  to  the  Conference 
of  Brussels  are  sad  evidence,  and  a  sure  index  is  the 
course  of  the  crown,  now  so  reduced  as  to  have 
hardly  any  value  in  international  relations.  The 
total  income  is  no  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  total 
expenditure,  and  the  rest  is  covered  by  depreciating 
the  currency. 

Such  is  the  situation  of  Hungary,  which  has  lost 
everything,  and  which  suffers  the  most  atrocious 
privations  and  the  most  cruel  pangs  of  hunger.    In 


168  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

this  condition  Bhe  should,  according  to  the  Treaty 
of  Trianon,  not  only  have  sufficient  for  herself, 
but  pay  indemnities  to  the  enemy. 

The  Enngarian  deputies,  at  the  sitting  which  ap- 
proved the  Treaty  of  Trianon,  were  clad  in  mourn- 
ing, and  many  were  weeping.  At  the  close  they  all 
rose  and  sang  the  national  hymn. 

A  people  which  is  in  the  condition  of  mind  of  the 
Magyar  people  can  accept  the  actual  state  of  affairs 
as  a  temporary  necessity,  but  have  we  any  faith  that 
it  will  not  seek  all  occasions  to  retake  what  it  has 
unjustly  lost,  and  that  in  a  certain  number  of  years 
there  will  not  be  new  and  more  terrible  wars? 

I  can  not  hide  the  profound  emotion  which  I  felt 
when  Count  Apponyi,  on  January  16,  1920,  before 
the  Supreme  Council  at  Paris,  wished  to  state  the 
case  of  Hungary. 

You,  gentlemen  [he  said],  whom  victory  has  permitted 
to  place  yourselves  in  the  position  of  judges,  you  have 
pronounced  your  former  enemies  guilty  and  the  point  of 
view  which  directs  you  in  your  resolutions  is  that  of  mak- 
ing the  consequences  of  the  war  fall  on  those  who  were 
responsible  for  it. 

Let  us  examine  now  with  great  serenity  the  conditions 
imposed  on  Hungary,  conditions  which  are  inacceptable 
without  the  most  serious  consequences.  Taking  away 
from  Hungary  the  larger  part  of  her  territory,  the  greater 
part  of  her  population,  the  greater  portion  of  her  eco- 
nomic resources,  can  this  particular  severity  be  justified 
by  the  general  principles  which  inspire  the  Entente! 
Hungary  not  having  been  heard  (and  she  was  not  heard 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   169 

except  to  take  note  of  the  declaration  of  the  head  of  the 
delegation),  can  not  accept  a  verdict  which  destroys  her 
without  her  understanding  the  reasons  for  it. 

The  figures  furnished  by  the  Hungarian  delega- 
tion left  no  doubt  behind:  they  treated  of  the  dis- 
memberment of  Hungary  and  the  sacrifice  of  three 
millions  and  a  half  of  Magyars  and  of  the  German 
population  of  Hungary  to  people  certainly  more 
ignorant  and  less  advanced.  At  the  end  Apponyi 
and  the  Hungarian  delegation  did  not  ask  for  any- 
thing more  than  a  plebiscite  for  the  territories  in 
dispute. 

After  he  had  explained  in  a  marvelous  manner 
the  great  function  of  historic  Hungary,  that  of  hav- 
ing saved  on  various  occasions  Europe  from  bar- 
baric invasion,  and  of  having  known  how  to  main- 
tain its  unity  for  ten  centuries  in  spite  of  the  many 
differences  among  nations,  Count  Apponyi  showed 
how  important  it  was  for  Europe  to  have  a  solid 
Hungary  against  the  spread  of  Bolshevism  and  vio- 
lence.   He  added: 

You  can  say  that  against  all  these  reasons  there  is  only 
one — victory,  the  right  of  victory.  We  know  it,  gentle- 
men; we  are  sufficient  realists  in  politics  to  count  on  this 
factor.  We  know  what  we  owe  to  victory  and  we  are 
ready  to  pay  the  price  of  our  defeat.  But  should  this  be 
the  sole  principle  of  construction:  that  force  alone  should 
be  the  basis  of  what  you  would  build,  that  force  alone 
should  be  the  base  of  the  new  building,  that  material  force 
alone  should  be  the  power  to  hold  up  those  constructions 


170  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

which  fall  while  you  are  trying  to  build  them  ?  The  future 
of  Europe  would  then  be  sad,  and  we  can  not  believe  it. 
We  do  not  find  all  that  in  the  mentality  of  the  victorious 
nations;  we  do  not  find  it  in  the  declarations  in  which 
you  have  defined  the  principles  for  which  you  have 
fought,  and  the  objects  of  the  war  which  you  have  proposed 
to  yourselves. 

And  after  having  referred  to  the  traditions  of 
the  past,  Count  Apponyi  added : 

We  have  faith  in  the  sincerity  of  the  principles  which 
you  have  proclaimed:  it  would  be  doing  you  injustice  to 
think  otherwise.  We  have  faith  in  the  moral  forces  with 
which  you  have  wished  to  identify  your  cause.  And  all 
that  I  wish  to  hope,  gentlemen,  is  that  the  glory  of  your 
arms  may  be  surpassed  by  the  glory  of  the  peace  which 
you  will  give  to  the  world. 

The  Hungarian  delegation  was  simply  heard ;  but 
the  treaty,  which  had  been  previously  prepared  and 
was  the  natural  consequence  of  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles, was  in  no  way  modified. 

An  examination  of  the  Treaty  of  Trianon  is  super- 
fluous. By  a  stroke  of  irony  the  financial  and 
economic  clauses  inflict  the  most  serious  burdens  on 
a  country  which  had  lost  almost  everything:  which 
has  lost  the  greatest  number  of  men  proportionately 
in  the  war,  which  since  the  war  has  had  two  revolu- 
tions, which  for  four  months  suffered  the  sackings 
of  Bolshevism — led  by  Bela  Kun  and  the  worst  ele- 
ments of  revolutionary  political  crime — and,  finally, 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   171 

has  suffered  a  Rumanian   occupation,  which  was 
worse  almost  than  the  revolutions  or  Bolshevism. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  which  of  the  peace  treaties 
imposed  on  the  conquered  is  lasting  and  which  is  the 
least  endurable:  after  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  all 
the  treaties  have  had  the  same  tendency  and  the 
same  conformation. 

The  situation  of  German- Austria  is  now  such  that 
she  can  say  with  Andromache:  "Let  it  please  God 
that  I  have  still  something  more  to  fear ! ' '  Austria 
has  lost  everything,  and  her  great  capital,  which 
was  the  most  joyous  in  Europe,  shelters  now  a 
population  whose  resources  are  reduced  to  the 
minimum.  The  slump  in  her  production,  which  is 
carried  on  amid  all  the  difficulties,  the  fall  in  her 
credit,  the  absolute  lack  of  foreign  exchanges,  the 
difficulty  of  trading  with  the  hostile  populations 
that  surround  her,  put  Austria  in  an  extremely 
difficult  position  and  in  increasing  and  continuous 
decadence.  The  population,  especially  in  the  cities, 
is  forced  to  endure  the  hardest  privations;  the  in- 
crease of  tuberculosis  is  continuous  and  threaten- 
ing. 

Bulgaria  has  had  rather  less  loss,  and  although 
large  tracts  of  Bulgarian  territory  have  been  given 
without  any  justifiable  motive  to  Greece  and  Jugo- 
slavia, and  although  all  outlet  on  the  .ZEgean  has 
been  taken  from  her  by  assigning  the  Greece  lands 
which  she  can  not  maintain,  on  the  whole  Bulgaria, 
after  the  Treaty  of  Neuilly,  has  less  serious  griev- 
ances than  the  other  conquered  countries.   Bulgaria 


172  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

had  a  territorial  extension  of  113,809  square  kilo- 
meters; she  has  now  lost  about  9,000  square  kilo- 
meters. She  had  a  population  of  4,800,000,  and  has 
losl  about  400,000. 

The  necessity  of  an  outlet  to  the  sea,  in  the  con- 
fused ideology  of  President  Wilson,  has  been  the 
cause  of  most  grievous  errors.  To  give  Poland  a 
port,  there  was  created  the  absurd  Free  State  of 
Danzig  and  the  Polish  corridor  in  the  territory  of 
Danzig.  To  create  a  port  for  Armenia  it  was  for 
a  time  thought  necessaiy  to  constitute  an  enormous 
Armenia  with  no  principle  of  vital  cohesion  and  to 
do  this  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  herd  the 
Turks  into  a  limited  area  of  Asia  Minor.  It  would 
seem  as  if,  for  the  Entente,  the  need  of  seacoast 
applied  only  to  the  victors  and  to  friendly  countries. 
Austria  and  Hungary,  it  seems,  have  no  need  of 
access  to  the  sea ;  and  Bulgaria  was  deprived  of  her 
outlet  thereon  even  though  it  was  necessary  to  vio- 
late the  rights  of  nationality  to  hamstring  her  in 
this  fashion. 

As  for  Turkey,  if  the  treaties  should  continue  to 
exist,  she  can  be  considered  as  disappearing  from 
Europe  and  on  the  road  to  disappearance  from 
Asia.  The  Turkish  population  has  been  distributed 
haphazard,  especially  to  Greece,  or  divided  up  under 
the  form  of  mandates  to  countries  of  the  Entente. 
According  to  the  Treaty  of  Sevres  of  August  10, 
1920,  Turkey  abandons  all  her  territory  in  Europe, 
withdrawing  her  frontier  to  the  Tchataldje  lines. 

Turkey  in  Europe  is  limited,  therefore,  to  the 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   173 

surroundings  of  Constantinople,  with  little  more 
than  two  thousand  square  kilometers,  and  a  popula- 
tion which  is  rather  hard  to  estimate,  but  which  is 
that  only  of  the  city  and  the  surroundings — per- 
haps 1,300,000  men.  In  Asia  Minor,  Turkey  loses 
the  territory  of  the  Sanjak  of  Smyrna,  over  which, 
however,  she  retains  a  purely  nominal  sovereignty; 
the  territory  still  undefined  of  the  Armenian  Re- 
public: Syria,  Cilicia,  Palestine  and  Mesopotamia, 
which  become  independent  under  mandatory  pow- 
ers; in  Arabia  the  territory  of  the  Hedjaz,  while 
the  remainder  of  the  peninsula  will  enjoy  almost 
complete  independence.  Besides,  Constantinople 
and  the  Straits  are  subject  to  international  control, 
and  the  three  states  now  the  most  closely  interested 
— Great  Britain,  France  and  Italy — assume  the  con- 
trol of  the  finances  and  other  aspects  of  the  Otto- 
man administration. 

Every  program  has  ignored  Turkey  except  when 
the  Entente  has  had  opportunity  to  favor  Greece. 
The  Greece  of  Venezelos  was  the  ward  of  the  Entente 
almost  more  than  Poland  itself.  Having  participated 
in  the  war  to  a  very  small  extent  and  with  almost 
insignificant  losses,  she  has,  after  the  war,  almost 
trebled  her  territory  and  almost  doubled  her  popu- 
lation. Turkey  was  virtually  ejected  from  Europe ; 
Greece  has  taken  almost  everything.  The  idea  of 
fixing  the  frontier  on  the  Enos  Medea  line  was  also 
rejected,  and  the  frontier  was  fixed  at  Tchataldje; 
Constantinople  was  under  the  fire  of  the  Greek  ar- 
tillery, and  Constantinople  was  nominally  the  only; 


174  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

city    that    remained   to   Turkey.     The    Sanjak   of 

Smyrna,  in  Asia  Minor,  was  the  true  wealth  of  Tur- 
key ;  it  represented  forty-five  per  cent,  of  the 
imports  of  the  Turkish  Empire.  Although  the  popu- 
lation of  the  whole  vilayet  of  Audin  and  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Sanjak  of  Smyrna  was  Mussulman, 
Greece  wTas  given  dominion  over  it.  The  whole  of 
Thrace  wras  assigned  to  Greece;  Adrianople,  a  city 
sacred  to  Islam,  which  contains  the  tombs  of  the 
Caliphs,  has  passed  to  the  Greeks. 

Nothing  could  be  more  absurd  than  the  treatment 
of  Turkey.  There  is  no  justification  for  placing 
Constantinople  under  perpetual  control,  for  hand- 
ing Smyrna  and  Thrace  over  to  Greece,  for  abolish- 
ing the  Turkish  sovereignty  over  Mecca  and  Medina 
or  for  ruining  and  subjecting  sections  of  the  Turk- 
ish Empire.  In  all  the  international  conferences  I 
have  attempted,  as  far  as  I  was  able,  to  oppose,  or 
at  least  to  check,  the  raids  upon  Turkey.  But  the 
fundamental  errors  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles 
wrere  here  to  beget  some  of  their  most  absurd  and 
harmful  consequences. 

The  Entente,  despite  the  resistance  of  some  of 
the  heads  of  governments,  always  yielded  to  the 
requests  of  Greece.  There  wras  a  sentiment  of 
antipathy  for  the  Turks  and  there  was  a  sympathy 
for  the  Greeks:  there  was  the  idea  to  put  outside 
Europe  all  Mussulman  dominion,  and  the  remem- 
brance of  the  old  propaganda  of  Gladstone,  and 
there  were  the  threats  of  Wilson,  who  in  one  of  his 
proposals  desired  nothing  less  than  to  put  Turkey 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   175 

outside  Europe.  But  above  all  there  was  the  per- 
sonal work  of  Venezelos.  Every  request,  without 
being  even  examined  thoroughly,  was  immediately 
justified  by  history,  statistics,  ethnography.  In 
any  discussion  he  took  care  to  manipulate  the  docu- 
ments, solliciter  doucement  les  textes,  as  is  often 
done  by  unscrupulous  scholars.  I  have  met  few  men 
in  my  career  who  were  at  once  as  uncompromisingly 
patriotic  and  as  profoundly  able  as  Venezelos. 
Whenever  in  friendly  spirit  I  advised  him  to  use 
moderation  and  showed  him  the  necessity  of  limit- 
ing the  Greek  demands  I  never  found  in  him  a  dif- 
ficult or  unyielding  spirit.  He  knew  how  to  ask  and 
obtain,  to  profit  by  all  the  circumstances,  to  utilize 
all  the  resources  better  even  than  the  professional 
diplomats.  In  asking  he  always  had  the  air  of  offer- 
ing, and  in  obtaining,  he  appeared  to  be  conceding 
something.  He  had  at  the  same  time  a  supreme 
ability  to  obtain  the  maximum  force  with  the  min- 
imum of  means  and  a  mobility  of  spirit  truly  sur- 
prising. He  saw  no  difficulty,  convinced  as  he  was, 
of  erecting  a  Greek  Empire  on  the  remnants  of  Tur- 
key. Every  time  that  doubts  were  expressed  to 
him,  or  he  was  shown  data  which  should  have  mod- 
erated the  positions,  he  denied  the  most  evident 
things,  he  recognized  no  danger,  and  saw  no  diffi- 
culty. He  affirmed  always  with  absolute  calm  the 
certainty  of  success.  It  was  his  opinion  that  the 
Balkan  peninsula  should  be,  in  the  north,  under  the 
action  of  the  Jugo-Slav  State  and  of  Rumania,  and 
in  the  south  of  Greece.    But  Greece,  having  almost 


176  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

all  the  islands  of  the  iEgean,  a  part  of  the  territory 
of  Turkey  and  all  the  ports  in  the  ^Egean,  from 
which  the  Bulgarians  had  been  expelled,  and  having 
the  Sanjak  of  Smyrna,  should  form  a  littoral  Em- 
pire of  the  East  and  chase  the  Turks  into  the  poorer 
districts  of  Anatolia. 

In  the  facility  with  which  the  demands  of  Greece 
were  accepted  (and  in  spite  of  everything  they  were 
accepted  even  after  the  fall  of  Venezelos)  there  was 
not  only  a  sympathy  for  Greece,  but,  above  all,  the 
certainty  that  a  large  Greek  army  at  Smyrna  would 
serve  principally  to  make  secure  those  countries 
which  have  and  wished  to  consolidate  great  interests 
in  Asia  Minor.  As  long  as  the  Turks  in  Anatolia 
had  their  eyes  upon  Smyrna  they  could  not  use  their 
forces  elsewhere.  For  the  same  motive,  in  the  last 
few  years,  all  the  blame  is  attributed  to  the  Turks. 
If  they  have  erred  much,  the  errors,  even  the  minor 
ones,  have  been  transformed  into  crimes.  The 
atrocities  of  the  Turks  have  been  described,  illus- 
trated, exaggerated;  all  the  other  atrocities,  often 
no  less  serious,  have  been  forgotten  or  ignored. 

The  idea  of  a  Hellenic  Empire  which  dominates 
all  the  coast  of  the  iEgean  in  Europe  and  Asia  en- 
counters one  fundamental  difficulty.  To  dominate 
the  coast  it  is  necessary  to  have  the  control  of  a 
large  hinterland.  The  Romans,  in  order  to  dominate 
Dalmatia,  were  obliged  to  go  as  far  as  the  Danube, 
Alexander  the  Great,  to  have  a  Greek  Empire,  had, 
above  all,  to  provide  for  land  dominion.  Commer- 
cial colonies  or  penetration  in  isolation  are  certainly 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   177 

possible,  but  vast  political  organizations  are  not 
possible.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  have  territory;  it 
is  necessary  to  organize  it  and  regulate  its  life. 
Men  do  not  live  on  what  they  eat,  and  even  less  on 
what  they  digest,  but  on  what  they  assimilate. 

Historians  of  the  future  will  be  profoundly  sur- 
prised to  learn  that  in  the  name  of  the  principle  of 
nationality  the  vilayet  of  Adrianople,  which  con- 
tains the  city  dearest  to  the  heart  of  Islam  after 
Mecca,  was  given  to  the  Greeks.  According  to  the 
very  data  supplied  by  Yenezelos  there  were  500,000 
Turks,  365,000  Greeks,  and  107,000  Bulgarians;  in 
truth  the  Turks  are  in  much  greater  superiority. 

The  grand  vizier  of  Turkey,  in  April,  1920,  pre- 
sented a  note  to  the  ambassadors  of  the  Entente 
to  claim  the  rights  on  certain  vilayets  of  the  Turk- 
ish Empire.  According  to  this  note,  in  "Western 
Thrace  there  were  522,574  inhabitants,  of  which 
362,445  were  Mussulmans.  In  the  vilayet  of  Adrian- 
ople, out  of  631,000  inhabitants,  360,417  were  Mus- 
sulmans. The  population  of  the  vilayet  of  Smyrna 
is  1,819,616  inhabitants,  of  which  1,437,983  are  Mus- 
sulmans. Perhaps  these  statistics  are  biased,  but 
the  statistics  presented  by  the  opposing  party  were 
even  more  fantastic. 

After  having  had  so  many  territorial  concessions, 
Greece — who  during  the  war  had  enriched  herself 
by  commerce — is  obliged,  even  after  the  return  of 
Constantine,  who  did  not  know  how  to  resist  the 
pressure,  to  undertake  most  risky  undertakings  in 
Asia  Minor,  and  has  no  way  of  saving  herself  except 


178  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

by  an  agreement  with  Turkey.  In  the  illusion  of 
conquering  the  Turkish  resistance,  she  is  now 
obliged  to  maintain  an  army  twice  as  big  as  that  of 
the  British  Empire!  The  dreams  of  greatness  in- 
crease: some  little  military  success  has  given  Greece 
the  idea  also  that  the  Treaty  of  Sevres  is  only  a 
foundation  regulating  the  relationship  with  the 
Allies  and  with  the  enemy,  and  constituting  for 
Greece  a  title  of  rights,  the  full  possession  of  which 
can  not  be  modified.  The  war  determines  new 
rights  that  can  not  invalidate  concessions  already 
given,  which,  on  the  contrary,  are  reinforced  and  be- 
come sanctioned,  but  render  necessary  new  conces- 
sions. 

What  will  happen?  While  Greece  dreams  of 
Constantinople  and  we  have  disposed  of  Constan- 
tinople and  the  Straits,  Turkey  seems  resigned  to 
Constantinople  itself,  to-day  a  very  poor  interna- 
tional city  rather  than  a  Turkish  city.  The  Treaty 
of  Sevres  says  that  it  is  true  that  the  contracting 
states  are  in  agreement  in  not  offending  any  of 
the  rights  of  the  Ottoman  Government  of  Con- 
stantinople, which  remains  the  capital  of  the  Turk- 
ish Empire,  always  under  the  reservations  of  the 
conditions  of  the  treaty.  That  is  equivalent  to 
saying  of  a  political  regime  that  it  is  a  controlled 
"liberty,"  just  as  in  the  time  of  the  czars  it  was 
said  that  there  existed  a  Monarchic  constitidionnelle 
sous  un  autocrate.  Constantinople  under  the  Treaty 
of  Sevres  is  the  free  capital  of  the  Turkish  Empire 
under  the  conditions  contained  in  the  treaty  whose 
avowTed  purpose  is  to  limit  all  liberty. 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   179 

It  is  not  true  that  all  the  wrongs  of  the  past  have 
been  entirely  on  the  side  of  Turkey.  We  ought  not 
to  forget  all  that  the  great  European  states  have 
done  to  disgrace,  break  up  and  control  Turkey.  Nor 
is  it  true  that  the  Turks  are  not  adapted  to  a  liberal 
regime,  nor  that  they  have  all  the  faults  that  have 
been  attributed  to  them.  The  Turkish  population  is 
fundamentally  good,  tolerant,  and  capable  of  pro- 
gressing and  of  developing  a  very  real  civilization. 
It  is  a  serious  mistake  to  attempt  to  humiliate  the 
Turks  and  to  strangle  Turkey. 

The  force  of  Turkey  has  always  been  in  her  im- 
mense power  of  resistance.  She  wins  by  resisting, 
she  wears  down  her  enemies  with  the  aid  of  time. 
To  conquer  the  resistance  of  Turkey,  both  in  the 
new  territories  of  Europe  and  in  Asia  Minor,  Greece 
will  have  to  exhaust  the  greater  part  of  her  limited 
resources.  The  Turks  have  always  brought  to  a 
standstill  those  who  would  dominate  them,  by  a 
stubborn  resistance  which  is  fanaticism  and  national 
dignity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Treaty  of  Sevres, 
which  has  systematized  in  part  Eastern  Europe,  was 
concluded  in  the  absence  of  two  personages  not  to 
be  overlooked,  Russia  and  Germany,  the  two  states 
which  have  the  greatest  interest  there.  Germany, 
once  she  had  been  defeated,  as  she  could  not  give  her 
explanations  on  the  conclusions  of  peace,  was  not 
able  to  intervene  in  the  solutions  of  the  question  of 
the  Orient.  Russia  was  absent.  Worn  out  with  the 
force  of  a  war  superior  to  her  energies,  she  fell  into 
convulsions,  and  is  now  struggling  between  the  two 


180  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

misfortunes  of  communism  and  misery,  of  which  it 
is  hard  to  say  whether  one,  or  which  of  the  two,  is 
the  consequence  of  the  other. 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  facts  concerns  Ar- 
menia. The  Entente  never  spoke  of  Armenia.  In 
his  fourteen  points  "Wilson  neither  considered  nor 
mentioned  it.  It  was  an  argument  difficult  for  the 
Entente  since  Russia  was  straining  in  reality  (under 
the  pretext  of  defending  the  Christians)  to  take 
Turkish  Armenia  without  giving  up  Russian  Ar- 
menia. 

But  suddenly  some  religious  societies  and  some 
philanthropic  people  instituted  a  vast  movement  for 
the  liberation  of  Armenia.  Nothing  could  be  more 
just  than  to  create  a  small  Armenian  State  which 
would  have  allowed  the  Armenians  to  group  them- 
selves around  Lake  Van  and  to  affirm  their  national 
unity  in  one  free  state.  But  here  also  the  hatred  of 
the  Turks,  the  agitation  of  the  Greeks,  the  dimly 
illuminated  philanthropy,  determined  a  large 
movement  to  form  a  great  State  of  Armenia  which 
should  have  outlets  on  the  sea  and  great  territories. 

Thus  people  no  longer  talked  of  a  small  state,  a 
refuge  and  safe  asylum  for  the  Armenians,  but  of  a 
large  state.  President  Wilson  himself,  during  the 
Conference  of  San  Remo,  sent  a  message  in  the  form 
of  a  reminder,  if  not  a  reproof,  to  the  European 
States  of  the  Entente  because  they  did  not  proceed 
to  the  constitution  of  a  State  of  Armenia.  It  was 
suggested  to  bring  it  down  to  Trebizond,  to  include 
Erzeroum  in  the  new  Armenia,  a  vast  State  of  Ar- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   181 

menia  in  which  the  Armenians  would  have  been  in 
the  minority.  And  all  that  in  homage  to  historical 
tradition  and  for  dislike  of  the  Turks!  A  great 
Armenia  creates  also  a  series  of  difficulties  among 
which  is  that  of  the  relations  between  Armenia, 
Georgia  and  Azerbajan,  supposing  that  in  the  fu- 
ture these  states  cut  themselves  off  definitely  from 
Russia.  The  Greater  Armenia  would  include  the 
vilayet  of  Erzeroum,  which  is  now  the  center  of 
Turkish  nationalism,  and  contains  more  Mussulmans 
than  Armenians.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  vilayet  of 
Erzeroum  has  673,000  Mussulmans,  4,800  Greeks 
and  135,000  Armenians. 

When  it  was  a  question  of  giving  Greece  terri- 
tories in  which  the  Greeks  were  in  a  minority  it  was 
said  that  the  populations  were  so  badly  governed  by 
the  Turks  that  they  had  the  right  to  pass  under  a 
better  regime,  whatever  it  might  be.  But  for  a 
large  part  of  the  territory  of  the  so-called  Greater 
Armenia  it  is  possible  to  commit  the  error  of  put- 
ting large  majorities  of  Mussulman  people  under  a 
hostile  Armenian  minority. 

The  Armenians  would  have  to  fight  at  the  same 
time  against  the  Kurds  and  against  Azerbajan ;  they 
are  surrounded  by  enemies  on  all  sides. 

But  the  whole  of  the  discussion  of  giving  the 
vilayet  of  Erzeroum  to  Armenia  or  leaving  it  to 
Turkey  is  entirely  superfluous,  for  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  attributing  territory  but  of  determining 
actual  situations.  If  it  is  desired  to  give  to  the  Ar- 
menians the  city  of  Erzeroum,  it  is  first  of  all  neces- 


182  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Bary  that  they  shall  be  able  to  enter  and  be  able  to 
remain  there.  Now  since  the  Armenians  have  not 
shown,  with  a  few  exceptions,  a  great  power  of  re- 
sistance, and  are  rather  a  race  of  merchants  than 
soldiers,  it  would  be  necessary  for  others  to  under- 
take the  charge  of  defending  them.  None  of  the 
European  States  desired  a  mandate  for  Armenia, 
and  no  one  wished  to  assume  the  serious  military 
burden  of  protecting  the  Armenians;  the  United 
States,  after  having  in  the  message  of  Wilson  backed 
a  Greater  Armenia,  wished  even  less  than  the  other 
states  to  interest  themselves  in  it. 

Probably  proposals  of  a  more  reasonable  char- 
acter and  marked  by  less  aversion  for  the  Turks 
would  have  permitted  the  Turks  not  only  to  recog- 
nize, which  is  not  difficult  for  them,  but  in  fact  to 
respect,  the  new  State  of  Armenia,  without  the 
dreams  of  a  seacoast  and  the  madness  of  Erzeroum. 

If  the  condition  of  the  conquered  is  sufficiently 
serious,  the  situation  of  the  peoples  most  favored  by 
the  Entente  in  Europe,  Poland  and  Greece,  is  cer- 
tainly not  less  so.  They  have  obtained  the  greatest 
and  most  unjust  accessions  in  territory  and  for  va- 
rious reasons  have  rendered  very  little  service 
during  the  war.  Each  of  these  countries  is  suffocat- 
ing under  the  weight  of  the  concessions,  and  seeks 
in  vain  a  way  of  salvation  from  the  burdens  which 
it  is  not  able  to  support,  and  from  the  mania  of 
conquest  which  is  the  fruit  of  exaltation  and  error. 

Having  obtained  much,  having  obtained  far  more 
than  they  thought  or  hoped,  they  believe  that  their 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   183 

advantage  lies  in  new  expansion.  Poland  violates 
treaties,  offends  laws  of  international  usage,  and  is 
protected  in  everything  she  undertakes.  But  every 
one  of  her  undertakings  can  only  throw  her  into 
greater  discomfort  and  augment  the  total  of  ruin. 

All  the  violences  in  Upper  Silesia  to  prevent  the 
plebiscite  going  in  favor  of  Germany  were  not  only 
tolerated  but  prepared  far  ahead. 

When  I  was  head  of  the  Italian  Government  the 
representative  of  the  German  Government  in  Rome, 
Von  Herf,  gave  documentary  evidence  on  what  was 
being  prepared,  and  on  April  30, 1920,  in  an  audience 
which  I  gave  him  as  head  of  the  council  he  furnished 
me  with  proofs  of  what  the  Polish  organization  was, 
what  were  its  objects  and  the  source  of  its  funds. 

As  every  one  knows,  the  plebiscite  of  March  20, 
1921,  in  spite  of  the  violence  and  notwithstanding 
the  officially  protected  brigandage,  resulted  favor- 
ably to  Germany.  Out  of  1,200,636  voters  717,122 
were  for  Germany  and  483,514  for  Poland.  The 
664  richest,  most  prosperous  and  most  populous 
communes  gave  a  majority  for  the  Germans,  597 
communes  gave  a  majority  for  Poland.  The  terri- 
tory of  Upper  Silesia,  according  to  the  treaty, 
according  to  the  plebiscite,  according  to  the  most  ele- 
mentary international  honesty,  should  be  imme- 
diately handed  over  to  Germany.  But  as  they  do  not 
wish  to  give  the  coal  of  Upper  Silesia  to  Germany, 
and  the  big  interests  of  the  new  great  metallurgical 
group  urge  and  intrigue,  the  Treaty  of  Versailles 
has  here  also  become  a  scrap  of  paper. 


184  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Instead  of  accepting,  as  was  the  first  duty,  the 
result  of  the  plebiscite,  people  have  resorted  to 
sophism  of  incomparable  weakness:  Article  88  of 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles  says  only  that  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Upper  Silesia  shall  be  called  to  designate  by 
means  of  a  plebiscite  if  they  desire  to  be  united  to 
Germany  or  to  Poland. 

It  was  necessary  to  find  a  sophism! 

The  Addendum  of  Section  8  establishes  how  the 
operation  of  the  vote  shall  be  carried  out  and  all 
the  procedure  of  the  elections.  There  are  six  articles 
of  procedure.  Paragraph  4  says  that  each  one  shall 
vote  in  the  commune  where  he  is  domiciled  or  in 
that  where  he  was  born  if  he  has  not  a  domicile  in 
the  territory.  The  result  of  the  vote  shall  be  de- 
termined commune  by  commune,  according  to  the 
majority  of  votes  in  each  commune. 

This  means  then  that  the  results  of  the  voting,  as 
is  done  in  political  questions  in  all  countries,  should 
be  controlled  commune  by  commune:  it  is  the  form 
of  the  vote  which  the  appendix  defines.  Instead, 
in  order  to  take  the  coal  away  from  Germany,  it 
was  attempted,  and  is  being  still  attempted,  not  to 
apply  the  treaty,  but  to  violate  the  principle  of  the 
indivisibility  of  the  territory  and  to  give  the  min- 
ing districts  to  Poland. 

The  plebiscite  was  not  applied  and  because  of  the 
difference  in  opinion  between  France  and  Great 
Britain  and  because  Italy's  policy  was  uncertain  it 
was  thought  best  to  consult  the  Council  of  the 
League   of  Nations.     Why  this   should  have  been 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   185 

done  after  the  plebiscite  it  is  difficult  to  understand. 
The  League  of  Nations  has  handed  down  a  decision 
which  is  not  only  lacking  in  straightforwardness  but 
which  also  reflects  upon  its  moral  seriousness. 

The  violation  of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  was 
not  an  offense  to  a  treaty  more  serious  than  this 
attempt ;  the  Treaty  of  1839  can  not  be  considered  a 
scrap  of  paper  any  more  than  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles.   Only  the  roles  of  the  parties  are  inverted. 

It  is  not  France,  noble  and  democratic,  which 
inspires  these  movements,  but  a  plutocratic  situa- 
tion which  has  taken  the  same  positions,  but  on 
worse  grounds,  than  the  German  metallurgists  be- 
fore the  war.  It  is  the  same  current  against  which 
Lloyd  George  has  several  times  bitterly  protested 
and  for  which  he  has  had  very  bitter  words  which 
it  is  not  necessary  to  recall.  It  is  the  same  move- 
ment which  has  created  agitations  in  Italy  by  means 
of  its  organs,  and  which  attempts  one  thing  only :  to 
ruin  the  German  industry  and,  having  the  control 
of  the  coal,  to  monopolize  in  Europe  the  iron  indus- 
tries and  those  that  are  derived  from  it. 

First  of  all,  in  order  to  indemnify  France  for  the 
temporary  damages  done  to  the  mines  in  the  north, 
there  was  the  cession  in  perpetuo  of  the  mines  of  the 
Saar;  then  there  were  the  repeated  attempts  to  oc- 
cupy the  territory  of  the  Ruhr  to  control  the  coal; 
last  of  all  there  is  the  wish  not  to  apply  the  plebis- 
cite and  to  violate  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  by  not 
giving  Upper  Silesia  to  Germany,  but  giving  it  un- 
justly to  Poland. 


186  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Germany  produced  before  the  war  about  190,- 
000,000  tons  of  coal ;  in  1913,  191,500,000.  The  con- 
sumption of  these  mines  themselves  was  about  a 
tenth,  19,000,000  tons,  while  for  exportation  there 
were  33,500,000  tons,  and  for  internal  consumption 
there  were  139,000,000. 

Now  Germany  has  lost,  and  justly,  Alsace-Lor- 
raine, 3,800,000  tons.  She  has  lost,  and  it  was  not 
just,  the  Saar,  13,200,000  tons.  She  is  bound  by  the 
obligations  of  the  treaty  to  furnish  France  with 
20,000,000  tons,  and  to  Belgium  and  Italy  and 
France  again  another  25,000,000  tons.  If  she  loses 
the  excellent  coal  of  Upper  Silesia,  about  43,800,000 
tons  per  year,  she  will  be  completely  paralyzed. 

It  is  needless  to  lose  time  in  demonstrating  for 
what  geographic,  ethnographic  and  economic  reason 
Upper  Silesia  should  be  united  with  Germany.  It 
is  a  useless  procedure,  and  also,  after  the  plebis- 
cites, an  insult  to  the  reasoning  powers.  If  the  vio- 
lation of  treaties  is  not  a  right  of  the  victor,  after 
the  plebiscite,  in  which,  notwithstanding  all  the  vio- 
lences, three-quarters  of  the  population  voted  for 
Germany,  then  there  is  no  reason  for  discussion. 

The  words  used  by  Lloyd  George  on  May  13, 1921, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  are  a  courteous  attenua- 
tion of  the  truth.  From  the  historical  point  of  view, 
he  said,  Poland  has  no  rights  over  Silesia.  The  only 
reason  for  which  Poland  could  claim  Upper  Silesia 
is  that  it  possesses  a  numerous  Polish  population, 
arrived  there  in  comparatively  recent  times  with  the 
intention   of  finding  work,  and   especially  in   the 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   187 

mines.  That  is  true  and  is  more  serious  than  would 
be  an  agitation  of  the  Italians  in  the  State  of  San 
Paulo  of  Brazil,  claiming  that  they  had  a  majority 
of  the  population. 

"The  Polish  insurrection,"  said  Lloyd  George 
justly,  "is  a  challenge  to  the  Treaty  of  Versailles, 
which,  at  the  same  time,  constitutes  the  charter  of 
Polish  Liberty/ '  Poland  is  the  last  country  in 
Europe  which  has  the  right  to  deplore  the  treaty, 
because  Poland  did  not  achieve  the  treaty.  Poland 
did  not  gain  her  liberty,  and  more  than  any  other 
country  should  respect  every  comma  of  the  treaty. 
She  owes  her  liberty  to  Italy,  Great  Britain  and 
France. 

In  the  future  [said  the  English  prime  minister]  force 
will  lose  its  efficiency  in  regard  to  the  Treaty  of  Versailles, 
and  the  maintenance  of  the  undertakings  on  the  part 
of  Germany  on  the  basis  of  her  signature  placed  to  the 
treaty  will  count  increasingly.  We  have  the  right  to 
everything  which  she  gives  us:  but  it  is  also  our  duty  not 
to  touch  anything  that  it  left  to  her.  It  is  our  duty  to 
act  with  rigorous  and  impartial  justice,  without  taking 
into  account  the  advantages  or  the  disadvantages  which 
may  accrue  therefrom.  Either  the  Allies  must  demand 
that  the  treaty  shall  be  respected,  or  they  should  permit 
the  Germans  to  make  the  Poles  respect  it.  It  is  all  very 
well  to  disarm  Germany,  but  to  desire  that  even  the  troops 
which  she  does  possess  should  not  participate  in  the  rees- 
tablishment  of  order  is  a  pure  injustice. 

Russia  to-day  is  a  fallen  Power,  tired,  a  prey  to  a  des- 
potism which  leaves  no  hope,  but  is  also  a  country  of  great 


188  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

natural  resources,  inhabited  by  a  people  of  courage,  who 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war  gave  proof  of  its  courage. 
Russia  will  not  always  find  herself  in  the  position  in 
which  she  is  to-day.  Who  can  say  what  she  will  become? 
In  a  short  time  she  may  become  a  powerful  country,  which 
can  say  its  word  about  the  future  of  Europe  and  the 
world.  To  which  part  will  she  turn?  With  whom  will 
she  unite? 

There  is  nothing  more  just  or  more  true  than 
this. 

But  Poland  wants  to  take  away  Upper  Silesia 
from  Germany  notwithstanding  the  plebiscite  and 
against  the  treaty,  and  which  has  in  this  action  the 
aid  of  the  metallurgical  interests  and  the  great  in- 
terests of  a  large  portion  of  the  Press  of  all  Europe. 
Poland,  which  has  large  groups  of  German  popula- 
tion, after  having  been  enslaved,  claims  the  right  to 
enslave  populations  which  are  more  cultured,  richer 
and  more  advanced.  And  besides  the  Germans  it 
claims  the  right  to  enslave  even  Russian  peoples 
and  further  to  occupy  entire  Russian  territories,  and 
wishes  to  extend  into  Ukraine.  There  is  then  the 
political  paradox  of  Vilna.  This  city,  which  belongs 
according  to  the  regular  treaty  to  Lithuania,  has 
been  occupied  in  an  arbitrary  manner  by  the  Poles, 
who  also  claim  Kovna. 

In  short,  Poland,  which  obtained  her  unity  by  a 
miracle,  is  working  in  the  most  feverish  manner  to 
create  her  own  ruin.  She  has  no  finance,  she  has 
no  administration,  she  has  no  credit.  She  does  not 
work,  and  yet  consumes;  she  occupies  new  terri- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   189 

tones,  and  ruins  the  old  ones.  Of  the  31,000,000 
inhabitants,  as  we  have  seen  7,000,000  are  Ukra- 
nians,  2.2  Russians,  2.1  Germans,  and  nearly  half  a 
million  of  other  nationalities.  But  among  the  eight- 
een or  nineteen  million  Poles  there  are  at  least 
four  million  Jews — Polish  Jews,  without  doubt,  but 
the  greater  portion  do  not  love  Poland,  which  has 
not  known  how  to  assimilate  them.  The  Treaty  of 
Versailles  has  created  the  absurd  position  that  to  go 
from  one  part  to  the  other  of  Germany  it  is  neces- 
sary to  traverse  the  Danzig  corridor.  In  other 
terms,  Germany  is  cut  in  two  parts,  and  to  move  in 
Prussia  herself  from  Berlin  to  one  of  the  oldest  Ger- 
man cities,  the  home  of  Immanuel  Kant,  Konigsberg, 
it  is  necessary  to  traverse  Polish  territory  unjustly 
occupied. 

Victory,  after  many  sad  vicissitudes  and  days  of 
bitter  doubt,  smiled  upon  the  Entente,  especially 
through  the  intervention  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  that 
is,  the  two  great  peoples  outside  of  Continental 
Europe. 

Suppose  that  the  plan  of  Germany  had  been  real- 
ized and  that  she  had  been  victorious.  Germany 
and  Austria  have  no  outlet  on  the  Mediterranean. 
What  would  we  have  thought  if  victorious  Austria 
had  demanded  the  port  of  Savona  and  a  corridor  to 
the  sea?  It  would  not  have  been  any  more  immoral 
to  turn  over  to  Austria  a  zone  of  Italian  territory 
from  the  Upper  Adige  to  the  Sea  of  Liguria  than 
it  was  to  constitute  the  State  of  Danzig  and  to  dis- 
member Germany.     Many  honest  Poles   say  that 


190  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Poland  has  no  responsibility  for  this  infamy  which 
was  committed  by  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  before 
Poland  had  achieved  a  life  of  its  own. 

But  this  merely  aggravates  the  situation  since  it 
shows  the  spirit  of  violence  and  the  profound 
cynicism  with  which  certain  great  questions  have 
been  settled  by  peoples  who  declared  they  were 
united  by  the  triumph  of  democracy  and  liberty. 

So  Poland  separates  the  two  most  numerous 
peoples  of  Europe:  Russia  and  Germany.  The 
Biblical  legend  lets  us  suppose  that  the  waters  of 
the  Red  Sea  opened  to  let  the  Chosen  People  pass: 
but  immediately  afterward  the  waters  closed  up 
again.  Is  it  possible  to  suppose  that  such  an  arbi- 
trary arrangement  as  this  will  last  for  long? 

If  it  has  lasted  as  long  as  it  has,  it  is  because  it 
was,  at  least  from  the  part  of  one  section  of  the  En- 
tente, not  the  road  to  peace,  but  because  it  was  a 
method  of  crushing  Germany. 

If  a  people  had  conditions  for  developing  rapidly 
it  was  Czecho-Slovakia.  But  also  with  the  intention 
of  hurting  Germany  and  the  German  peoples,  a 
Czecho-Slovak  State  was  created  which  has  its  own 
tremendous  crisis  of  nationality.  A  Czecho- 
slovakia with  a  population  of  eight  to  nine  million 
people  represented  a  compact  ethnical  unity.  In- 
stead, they  have  added  five  and  a  half  million  people 
of  different  nationalities,  among  whom  there  are 
about  four  million  Germans,  with  cities  which  arc  as 
German  as  any  in  the  world,  as  Pilsen,  Karlsbad, 
Reichenberg,  etc.  What  is  even  more  serious  is 
that  the  four  million  Germans  are  attached  to  Ger- 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   191 

many,  and,  having  a  superior  culture  and  civiliza- 
tion, will  never  resign  themselves  to  being  placed 
under  the  Czechs. 

Czecho-Slovakia  had  mineral  riches,  industrial 
concerns  and  solid  agriculture,  and  a  culture  spread 
among  the  people — all  the  conditions  for  rising 
rapidly.  All  these  advantages  risk  being  annulled 
by  the  grave  and  useless  insult  to  the  Germans  and 
Magyars. 

Not  only  is  the  situation  of  Europe  in  every  way 
uncertain,  but  there  is  a  tendency  in  the  groups  of 
the  victors  on  the  Continent  of  Europe  to  increase 
the  military  budgets.  The  relationships  of  trade  are 
being  restored  only  slowly;  commerce  is  spoken  of 
as  an  aim.  In  Italy  the  dangers  and  perils  of  re- 
opening trade  with  Germany  have  been  seriously 
discussed;  customs  duties  are  raised  every  day;  the 
industrial  groups  find  easy  propaganda  for  protec- 
tion. Any  limitation  of  competition  is  a  duty, 
whether  it  be  the  enemy  of  yesterday  or  the  enemy 
of  to-day,  and  so  the  greatest  evils  of  protection 
are  camouflaged  under  patriotism. 

None  of  the  countries  which  have  come  out  of  the 
war  on  the  Continent  has  a  financial  position 
which  helps  toward  a  solid  situation.  All  the  finan- 
cial documents  of  the  various  countries,  which  I 
have  collected  and  studied  with  great  care,  contain 
enormous  masses  of  expenses  which  are  the  conse- 
quences of  the  war;  those  of  the  conquering  coun- 
tries also  contain  enormous  totals  of  expense  which 
are  or  can  become  the  cause  of  new  wars. 

The  conquered  countries  have  not  actually  any 


192  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

finance.  Germany  lias  an  increase  of  expenses 
which  the  fall  of  the  mark  renders  more  serious. 
In  1920  she  spent  not  less  than  ninety-two  billions, 
ruining  her  circulating  medium.  How  much  has  she 
spent  in  1921? 

Austria  and  Hungary  have  budgets  which  are 
simply  guesses.  The  last  Austrian  budget,  for  1921, 
assigned  a  sum  of  seventy-one  billions  of  crowns  for 
expenses,  and  this  for  a  poor  country  with  seven 
million  inhabitants. 

A  detailed  examination  of  the  financial  situation 
of  Czecho-Slovakia,  of  Rumania,  and  of  the  Jugo- 
slav States  gives  results  which  are  at  the  least 
alarming.  Even  Greece,  which  until  yesterday  had 
a  solid  structure,  gallops  now  in  a  madness  of  ex- 
penditure which  exceeds  all  her  resources,  and  if 
she  does  not  find  a  means  to  make  peace  with  Tur- 
key she  will  find  her  credit  exhausted.  The  most 
ruinous  of  all  is  the  situation  of  Poland,  whose  fi- 
nance is  certainly  not  better  regulated  than  that  of 
the  Bolsheviks  of  Moscow,  to  judge  from  the  course 
of  the  Polish  mark  and  the  Russian  rouble  if  any 
one  is  interested  enough  to  buy  them  on  an  inter- 
national market. 

The  rate  of  exchange  since  the  war  has  not  per- 
ceptibly improved  even  for  the  great  countries,  and 
it  is  extraordinarily  worse  for  the  other  countries. 

In  June,  1921,  France  had  a  circulation  of  about 
thirty-eight  billion  francs,  Belgium  six  billion 
francs,  Italy  about  eighteen  billion;  Great  Britain, 
between  state  notes  and  Bank  of  England  notes, 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   193 

had  hardly  £434,000,000  sterling.  Actually,  among 
the  Continental  countries  surviving  the  war,  Italy 
is  the  country  which  has  made  the  greatest  efforts 
not  to  augment  the  circulation  but  to  increase  the 
taxes;  and  this  because  she  had  no  illusions  of  re- 
building her  finance  and  her  national  economy  on 
an  enemy  indemnity. 

But  the  conquered  countries  have  so  abused  their 
circulation  that  they  almost  live  on  the  thought  of 
it — as,  in  fact,  not  a  few  of  the  conquering  countries 
and  those  that  are  the  result  of  the  war,  do.  Ger- 
many has  passed  eighty-eight  billions,  and  is  rapidly 
approaching  one  hundred  billions.  Now,  when  one 
thinks  that  the  United  States,  after  so  many  loans 
and  after  all  the  expenses  of  the  war,  has  only  a 
circulation  of  $4,557,000,000,  one  understands  what 
difficulty  Germany  has  to  produce,  to  live,  and  to 
refurnish  herself  with  raw  materials. 

Only  Great  Britain  of  all  the  countries  in  Europe 
that  have  issued  from  the  war  has  had  a  courageous 
financial  policy.  Public  opinion,  instead  of  pushing- 
Parliament  to  financial  dissipation,  has  insisted  on 
economy.  If  the  situation  created  by  the  war  has 
transformed  also  the  English  circulation  into  uncon- 
vertible paper  money,  this  is  merely  a  passing 
phase.  If  sterling  loses  almost  a  quarter  of  its 
value  on  the  dollar — that  is,  on  gold — seeing  that 
the  United  States  of  America  alone  now  have  a 
money  at  par,  this  is  also  merely  a  transitory  phase. 

Great  Britain  has  the  good  sense  to  curtail  ex- 
penses, and  sterling  tends  continually  to  improve. 


194  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

France  and  Italy  are  in  an  intermediate  position. 
Their  money  can  be  saved,  but  it  will  require  ener- 
getic care  and  great  economies,  stern  finance,  a 
greater  development  of  production,  limitation  of 
consumption,  above  all,  of  what  is  purchased  from 
abroab.  At  the  date  of  which  I  am  writing,  French 
currency  stands  toward  sterling  in  the  ratio  of 
47:100  and  toward  the  dollar  36:100.  The  Italian 
lira  stands  at  a  ratio  of  28:100  to  sterling  and  21: 
100  toward  the  dollar. 

There  are  still  two  countries  in  which  tenacious 
energy  can  save  and  with  many  sacrifices  they  can 
arrive  at  sound  money.  France  has  a  good  many 
more  resources  than  Italy;  she  has  a  smaller  need 
of  imports  and  a  greater  facility  for  exports.  But 
her  public  debt  has  reached  two  hundred  sixty-five 
billions,  the  circulation  has  well  passed  thirty-eight 
billions,  and  they  still  fear  to  calculate  among  the 
extraordinary  income  of  the  budget  the  fifteen  bil- 
lions a  year  which  should  come  from  Germany. 

Italy,  with  great  difficulty  of  production  and  less 
concord  inside  the  country,  has  a  truer  vision,  and 
does  not  reckon  any  income  that  is  not  derived  from 
her  own  resources.  Her  circulation  does  not  pass 
eighteen  billions,  and  her  debt  exceeds  by  but  little 
one  hundred  billions. 

With  prudence  and  firmness  France  and  Italy 
will  be  able  to  balance  their  accounts. 

But  the  financial  situation  and  the  exchanges  of 
the  conquered  countries,  even  that  of  Germany,  may 
be  called  desperate. 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   195 

If  expressed  in  percentages,  the  German  mark  is 
worth  5.11  per  cent,  in  comparison  with  the  pound 
sterling  and  3.98  per  cent,  of  the  dollar.  What 
possibility  is  there  of  systematizing  the  exchange? 

Germany  was  compelled  this  year  to  carry  her 
expenses  to  one  hundred  thirty  billions  of  marks. 
As  her  circulation  has  exceeded  eighty-eight  bil- 
lions, how  can  she  straighten  out  her  money? 

As  for  the  Austrian  and  Hungarian  crowns,  the 
Jugo-Slav  crowns,  the  Rumanian  lei,  and  all  the 
other  depreciated  moneys,  their  fate  is  not  doubtful. 
As  their  value  is  always  descending,  and  the  gold 
equivalent  becomes  almost  indeterminable,  they  will 
have  a  common  fate.  As  for  the  Polish  mark,  it  can 
be  said  that  before  long  it  will  not  be  worth  the 
paper  on  which  it  is  printed. 

There  is,  then,  the  fantastic  position  of  the  public 
debts!  They  have  reached  now  such  figures  that 
no  imagination  could  have  forecasted.  France  alone 
has  a  debt  which  of  itself  exceeds  by  a  great  deal 
all  the  debts  of  all  the  European  States  previous  to 
the  war:  265  billions  of  francs.  And  Germany,  the 
conquered  country,  has  in  her  turn  a  debt  which 
exceeds  320  billions  of  marks,  and  which  is  rapidly 
approaching  400  billions.  The  debts  of  many  coun- 
tries can  only  be  remembered,  because  there  is  no 
practical  interest  in  knowing  whether  Austria,  Hun- 
gary, and  especially  Poland,  has  one  debt  or 
another,  since  the  situation  of  the  creditors  is  not  a 
situation  of  reality. 

The  whole  debt  of  the  United  States  of  America 


196  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

is,  after  so  much  war,  only  23,982,000,000  dollars; 
but  the  United  States  are  creditors  of  the  Entente 
for  9,500,000,000  dollars.  Also  England,  against  a 
debt  of  £9,240,000,000  sterling,  has  a  credit  of 
£1,778,000,000. 

These  serious  figures  which  we  have  cited  explain 
the  situation  of  unrest  which  has  become  more  acute 
through  the  scarcity  of  commercial  exchanges.  They 
indicate  also  that  internal  peace  is  more  necessary 
in  every  country  than  anything  else.  "We  must 
produce  more,  consume  less,  put  the  finances  in 
order,  and  reestablish  credit.  Instead,  the  con- 
quered countries  are  going  downward  every  day  and 
the  conquering  countries  are  maintaining  very  big 
armies,  exhausting  their  resources,  while  they  are 
spreading  the  conviction  that  the  indemnity  from  the 
enemy  will  compensate  sufficiently,  or  at  least 
partly,  for  the  work  of  restoration. 

In  fact,  the  causes  of  discontent  and  distrust  are 
augmenting.  Nothing  is  more  significant  than  the 
lack  of  conscience  with  which  programs  of  violence 
and  of  ruin  are  lightly  accepted;  nothing  is  more 
deplorable  than  the  thoughtlessness  with  which  the 
germs  of  new  wars  are  cultivated.  Germany  has 
disarmed  with  a  swiftness  that  has  even  astonished 
the  military  circles  of  the  Entente;  but  the  bitter 
results  of  the  struggle  are  not  only  not  finished 
against  Germany,  not  even  to-day  does  she  form 
part  of  the  League  of  Nations  (which  is  rather  a 
sign  of  a  state  of  mind  than  an  advantage),  but  the 
attitude  toward  her  is  even  more  hostile. 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   197 

Two  years  after  the  end  of  the  war  R.  Poincare 
wrote  that  the  League  of  Nations  would  lose  its 
best  possibility  of  lasting  if,  un  jour,  it  did  not  re- 
unite all  the  nations  of  Europe.  But  he  added  that 
of  all  the  conquered  nations — Austria,  Hungary, 
Bulgaria,  Turkey  and  Germany — the  last-men- 
tioned, by  her  conduct  during  the  war  and  after  the 
peace,  justified  least  a  near  right  of  entry.  It  would 
be  incontestablement  plus  naturel  (with  how  many 
things  does  nature  occupy  herself!)  to  let  Austria 
enter  first  if  she  will  disavow  the  policy  of  reattach- 
ment— that  is,  being  purely  German,  to  renounce, 
even  though  she  can  not  live  alone,  union  with  Ger- 
many, and  this  contrary  to  the  principle  of  national- 
ity, and  in  spite  of  the  principle  of  self-determina- 
tion. Bulgaria  and  Turkey  may  join  the  League 
provided  they  maintain  a  loyal  and  courteous  atti- 
tude toward  Greece,  Rumania  and  Serbia.  The  turn 
of  Germany  will  come,  but  only  after  Turkey,  when 
she  will  have  given  proof  of  executing  the  treaty, 
which  no  reasonable  and  honest  person  considers 
it  possible  for  her  to  carry  out  in  its  entirety. 

The  most  characteristic  facts  of  this  peace  which 
continues  the  war  can  be  recapitulated  as  follows : 

1.  Europe  on  the  whole  has  more  men  under 
arms  than  before  the  war.  The  conquered  states 
are  forced  to  disarm,  but  the  conquering  states  have 
increased  their  armaments;  the  new  states  and  the 
countries  which  have  been  created  by  the  war  have 
also  increased  their  armaments. 

2.  Production  is  very  tardily  being  taken  up 


198  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

again  because  there  is  everywhere,  if  in  a  different 
degree,  a  lesser  desire  for  work  on  the  part  of  the 
working  classes  joined  with  a  need  for  higher  re- 
muneration. 

3.  The  difficulties  of  trade,  instead  of  decreas- 
ing in  many  countries  of  Europe,  are  increasing,  and 
international  commerce  is  very  slowly  recovering. 
Between  the  states  of  Europe  there  is  no  real  com- 
merce which  can  compare  with  that  under  normal 
conditions.  Considering  actual  values  with  values 
before  the  war,  the  products  which  now  form  the 
substance  of  trade  between  European  countries  do 
not  represent  even  the  half  of  that  before  the  war. 

As  the  desire  for  consumption,  if  not  the  capacity 
for  consumption,  has  greatly  increased,  and  the  pro- 
duction is  greatly  decreased,  all  the  states  have  in- 
creased their  functions.  So  the  depreciation  of  the 
paper  money  and  the  treasury  bills  which  permit 
these  heavy  expenses  is  in  all  the  countries  of 
Europe,  even  if  in  different  degrees,  very  great. 

The  conquering  countries,  from  the  moment  that 
they  had  obtained  in  the  treaties  of  peace  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  conquered  that  the  war  was 
caused  by  them,  held  it  to  be  legitimate  that  they 
should  lose  all  their  available  goods,  their  colonies, 
their  ships,  their  credits  and  their  commercial  or- 
ganization abroad,  but  that  the  conquered  should 
also  pay  all  the  damages  of  the  war.  The  war,  there- 
fore, should  be  paid  for  by  the  conquered,  who 
recognized  (even  if  against  their  will)  that  they 
were  alone  responsible.     That  forms  henceforth  a 


CONQUERORS  AND  CONQUERED   199 

certain  canon  of  foreign  policy,  the  less  true  a  thing 
appear  the  more  it  is  repeated. 

Although  the  treaties  oblige  Austria,  Hungary, 
Bulgaria  and  Turkey  to  pay  the  damages  of  the  war, 
it  is,  however,  certain  thai  they  are  not  able  to  pay 
anything  and  not  even  the  expenses  of  the  victors  on 
their  territory.  "Cantabit  vacuus  coram  latrone 
viator,"  said  Juvenal  ("Who  has  nothing  can  give 
nothing"),  and  Austria,  for  her  part,  instead  of 
giving  is  asking  for  help  to  feed  herself. 

So  the  problem  remains  limited  to  Germany.  Can 
she  pay  the  indemnity  indicated  in  the  treaty?  Can 
she  pay  for  the  damages  and  indemnify  the  victors! 
After  having  given  up  her  colonies,  her  ships,  her 
railway  material,  all  her  available  credits  abroad,  in 
what  form  can  she  pay! 

The  fundamental  controversy  reduces  itself 
henceforth  only  to  this  point,  which  we  shall  try  if 
possible  to  make  clear,  since  we  desire  that  this  mat- 
ter shall  be  presented  in  the  clearest  and  most  evi- 
dent form. 

From  now  on  it  is  not  the  chancelleries  which 
must  impose  the  solutions  of  these  problems;  but 
it  is  the  mass  of  the  public  in  Europe  and  America. 


THE   INDEMNITY   FROM   THE   DEFEATED   ENEMY   AND   THE 
ANXIETIES  OF  THE  VICTORS 

We  have  seen  the  process  by  which  the  idea  of  the 
indemnity  for  damages,  which  was  not  contained 
either  in  the  peace  declaration  of  the  Entente,  nor 
in  the  manifestations  of  the  various  parliaments, 
nor  in  the  first  armistice  proposals,  nor  in  the 
armistice  between  Italy  and  Austria,  was  intro- 
duced in  the  armistice  with  Germany,  out  of  pure 
regard  for  France,  without  taking  heed  of  the  conse- 
quences. Three  words,  said  Clemenceau,  only  three 
words  need  be  added,  words  which  compromise 
nothing  and  are  an  act  of  deference  to  France.  The 
entire  construction  of  the  treaties,  after  all,  is  based 
on  those  three  words. 

And  how  fantastic  the  demands  for  compensation 
have  become! 

An  old  Italian  proverb  says,  "In  time  of  war 
there  are  more  lies  than  earth. "  Ancient  and  mod- 
ern pottery  reproduce  the  motto,  which  is  wide- 
spread, and  whose  truth  was  not  understood  until 
some  years  ago.  So  many  foolish  things  were  said 
about  the   almost  mysterious  maneuvers   of  Ger- 

200 


THE  INDEMNITY  201 

many,  about  her  vast  expansion,  her  great  resources 
and  accumulated  capital,  that  the  reality  tended  to 
become  lost  to  sight. 

These  absurd  legends,  formed  during  the  war, 
were  not  forgotten,  and  there  are  even  now  many 
who  believe  in  good  faith  that  Germany  can  pay,  if 
not  twenty  or  twenty-five  billions  a  year,  at  least 
nine  or  ten  without  any  difficulty. 

France's  shrewdest  politicians,  however,  well 
knew  that  the  demand  for  an  enormous  and  unlim- 
ited indemnity  was  only  a  means  of  putting  Ger- 
many under  control  and  of  forcing  her  down  to  the 
point  of  exhaustion.  But  the  others  maintained 
this  proposal  more  out  of  rancor  and  hatred  than 
from  any  actual  political  concept.  It  may  be  said 
that  the  problem  of  the  indemnity  has  never  been 
seriously  studied  and  that  the  calculations,  the  val- 
uations, the  procedures,  have  all  formed  a  series  of 
impulsive  acts  coordinated  by  a  single  error,  the 
error  of  the  French  politicians  who  had  the  one  aim 
of  holding  Germany  down. 

The  procedure  was  simple. 

In  the  first  phase  the  indemnities  came  into  being 
from  three  words  inserted  almost  by  chance  into  the 
armistice  treaty  on  November  2,  1918,  reparations 
for  damages.  It  was  merely  a  matter  of  a  simple 
expression  to  satisfy  public  feeling.  "I  beg  the 
council  to  put  itself  into  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
French  population. ' '  (Je  supplie  le  conseil  de  se 
mettre  dans  V esprit  de  la  population  frangaise.)  .  .  . 
It  was  a  moral  concession,  a  moral  satisfaction, 


202  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

But  afterward,  as  things  wont  on,  all  was  altered 
when  it  came  to  preparing  the  treaties. 

For  a  while  the  idea,  not  only  of  a  reparation  of 
damages,  but  of  the  payment  of  the  cost  of  the  war 
was  entertained.  Tt  was  maintained  that  the  prac- 
tise of  making  the  vanquished  reimburse  the  cost  of 
the  war  was  permitted  by  international  law.  Since 
Germany  had  provoked  the  war  and  lost  it,  she  must 
not  only  furnish  an  indemnity  for  the  losses,  but 
also  pay  the  cost. 

The  cost  was  calculated  roughly  at  seven  hundred 
billions  of  francs  at  par.  Further,  there  was  the 
damage  to  assess.  In  the  aggregate,  war  costs,  dam- 
age to  property,  damage  to  persons,  came  to  at 
least  one  thousand  billions.  But  since  it  was  im- 
possible to  demand  immediate  payment  and  was 
necessary  to  spread  the  sum  over  fifty  years,  taking 
into  consideration  sinking  funds  and  interest  the 
total  came  to  three  thousand  billions.  The  amount 
was  published  by  the  illustrated  papers  with  the 
usual  diagrams,  drawings  of  golden  globes,  length  of 
paper  money  if  stretched  out,  height  of  metal  if  all 
piled  up  together,  etc.,  etc. 

These  figures  were  discussed  for  the  first  few 
months  by  a  public  accustomed  to  be  surprised  at 
nothing.  They  merely  helped  to  demonstrate  that 
an  indemnity  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  billions 
was  a  real  sacrifice  for  the  Allies. 

Thus  a  whole  series  of  principles  came  to  be  es- 
tablished which  were  a  contradiction  of  reality. 

A  great  share  in  the  responsibility  in  this  matter 


THE  INDEMNITY  203 

lies  with  Great  Britain,  who  not  only  followed 
France's  error,  but  in  certain  ways  made  it  worse 
by  a  number  of  intemperate  requests.  Italy  had  no 
influence  on  the  proceedings  owing  to  her  indecisive 
policy.  Only  the  United  States,  notwithstanding  the 
banality  of  some  of  her  exports  (lucus  a  non  lucen- 
do),  spoke  an  occasional  word  of  reason. 

When  Lloyd  George  understood  the  mistake 
committed  in  the  matter  of  the  indemnity  it  was 
too  late. 

The  English  public  found  itself  face  to  face  with 
the  elections  almost  the  day  after  the  conclusion  of 
the  war.  In  the  existing  state  of  exaltation  and 
hatred  the  candidates  found  a  convenient  " plank' ' 
in  promising  the  extermination  of  Germany,  the 
trial  of  the  kaiser,  as  well  as  of  thousands  of  Ger- 
man officers  accused  of  cruelty,  and  last,  but  not 
least,  the  end  of  German  competition. 

The  prime  minister  of  Australia,  William  Morris 
Hughes,  a  small-minded,  insensitive,  violent  man, 
directed  a  furious  campaign  in  favor  of  a  huge 
indemnity.  Lord  Northcliffe  lent  the  aid  of  his 
numerous  papers  to  this  campaign,  which  stirred  up 
the  electors. 

Lloyd  George,  with  his  admirable  intelligence, 
perceived  the  situation  clearly.  He  did  not  believe 
in  the  usefulness  or  even  in  the  possibility  of  trying 
the  kaiser  and  the  German  officers.  He  did  not  be- 
lieve in  the  possibility  of  an  enormous  indemnity  or 
even  a  very  large  one. 

His  first  statements,  like  those  of  Bonar  Law,  a 


204  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

serious,  honest,  well-balanced  man,  an  idealist  with 
the  appearance  of  a  practical  person,  revealed  noth- 
ing. On  the  eve  of  the  dissolution  of  Parliament, 
Lloyd  George,  speaking  at  Wolverhampton,  No- 
vember 24,  1918,  did  not  even  hint  at  the  question 
of  the  reparations  or  indemnity.  He  was  impelled 
along  that  traek  by  the  movement  coming  from 
France,  by  the  behavior  of  the  candidates,  by 
Hughes's  attitude,  and  by  the  Press  generally,  es- 
pecially that  of  Northcliffe. 

A  most  vulgar  spectacle  was  offered  by  many  of 
the  English  candidates,  among  whom  were  several 
members  of  the  War  Cabinet,  who  used  language 
worthy  of  raving  dervishes  before  crowds  hypno- 
tized by  promises  of  the  most  impossible  things. 

To  promise  the  electors  that  Germany  should  pay 
the  cost  of  the  war,  to  announce  to  those  who  had 
lost  their  sons  that  the  kaiser  was  to  be  hanged,  to 
promise  the  arrest  and  punishment  of  the  most 
guilty  German  officers,  to  prophesy  the  reduction 
to  slavery  of  a  Germany  competing  on  sea  and  land, 
was  certainly  the  easiest  kind  of  electoral  program. 
The  numerous  war-mutilated  accepted  it  with  much 
enthusiasm,  and  the  people  listened,  open-mouthed, 
to  the  endless  series  of  promises. 

Hughes,  who  was  at  bottom  in  good  faith,  de- 
veloped the  thesis  which  he  afterward  upheld  at 
Paris  with  logical  precision.  It  was  Germany's 
duty  to  reimburse,  without  any  limitation,  the  entire 
cost  of  the  war :  damage  to  property,  damage  to  per- 
sons,  and  war-cost.     He  who  has  committed  the 


THE  INDEMNITY  205 

wrong  must  make  reparation  for  it  to  the  extreme 
limits  of  his  resources,  and  this  principle,  recog- 
nized by  the  jurists,  requires  that  the  total  of  the 
whole  cost  of  the  war  fall  upon  the  enemy  nations. 
Later  on,  Hughes,  who  was  a  sincere  man,  recog- 
nized that  it  was  not  possible  to  go  beyond  asking 
for  reparation  of  the  damages. 

Lloyd  George  was  dragged  along  by  the  necessity 
of  not  drawing  away  the  mass  of  the  electors  from 
the  candidates  of  his  party.  Thus  he  was  obliged 
on  December  11,  in  his  final  manifesto,  to  announce 
not  only  the  kaiser's  trial  and  that  of  all  those  re- 
sponsible for  atrocities,  but  to  promise  the  most 
extensive  kind  of  indemnity  from  Germany  and  the 
compensation  of  all  who  had  suffered  by  the  war. 
Speaking  the  same  evening  at  Bristol,  he  promised 
to  uphold  the  principle  of  the  indemnity,  and  as- 
serted the  absolute  right  to  demand  from  Germany 
payment  for  the  costs  of  the  war. 

In  England,  where  the  illusion  soon  passed  away, 
in  France,  where  it  has  not  yet  been  dissipated,  the 
public  has  been  allowed  to  believe  that  Germany  can 
pay  the  greater  part,  if  not  the  entire  cost  of  the 
war,  or  at  least  make  compensation  for  the  damage. 

For  many  years  I  have  studied  the  figures  in 
relation  to  private  wealth  and  the  wealth  of  nations, 
and  I  have  written  at  length  on  the  subject.  I  know 
how  difficult  it  is  to  obtain  by  means  of  even  ap- 
proximate statistics  results  more  or  less  near  to  the 
reality.  Nothing  pained  me  more  than  to  hear  the 
facility  with  which  politicians  of  repute  spoke  of 


206  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

obtaining  an  indemnity  of  hundreds  of  billions. 
When  Germany  expressed  her  desire  to  pay  an  in- 
demnity in  one  agreed  lump  sum  (d  for  fait)  of  one 
hundred  billions  of  gold  marks  (an  indemnity  she 
could  never  pay,  so  enormous  is  it),  I  saw  states- 
men, whom  I  imagined  not  deprived  of  intelligence, 
smile  at  the  paltriness  of  the  offer.  An  indemnity 
of  fifty  billions  of  gold  marks,  such  as  that  proposed 
by  Keynes,  appeared  absurd  in  its  smallness. 

When  the  Peace  Conference  reassembled  in  Paris 
the  situation  concerning  the  indemnity  was  as  fol- 
lows. The  Entente  had  never  during  the  war  spoken 
of  indemnity  as  a  condition  of  peace.  Wilson,  in 
his  proposals,  had  spoken  only  of  reconstruction  of 
invaded  territories.  The  request  for  reparations  for 
damages  had  been  included  in  the  terms  of  the 
armistice  merely  to  afford  a  moral  satisfaction  to 
France.  But  the  campaign  waged  in  France  and 
during  the  elections  in  England  had  exaggerated  the 
demands  so  as  to  include  not  only  reparation  for 
damage  but  reimbursement  of  the  cost  of  the  war. 

Only  the  United  States  maintained  that  the  in- 
demnity should  be  limited  to  the  reparation  of  the 
damages:  a  reparation  which  in  later  phases  in- 
cluded not  only  reconstruction  of  destroyed  terri- 
tories and  damage  done  to  private  property,  but 
even  pensions  to  the  families  of  those  killed  in  the 
war  and  the  sums  in  grant  paid  during  it. 

When  Prussia  conquered  France  in  1870,  she 
asked  for  an  indemnity  of  five  billion.  The  Entente 
could  have  demanded  from  the  vanquished  an  in- 


THE  INDEMNITY  207 

demnity  and  then  have  reassumed  relations  with 
them  provided  it  were  an  indemnity  that  they  could 
pay  in  a  brief  period  of  time. 

Instead,  it  being  impossible  to  demand  an  enor- 
mous sum  of  three  hundred  or  four  hundred  billions, 
a  difficult  figure  to  fix  definitely,  recourse  was  had 
to  another  expedient. 

From  the  moment  that  the  phrase  reparation  for 
damages  was  included  in  the  armistice  treaty  as  a 
claim  that  could  be  urged,  it  became  impossible  to 
ask  for  a  fixed  sum.  What  was  to  be  asked  for  was 
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  amount  of  the  dam- 
ages. Hence  a  special  commission  was  required, 
and  the  Eeparations  Commission  appears  on  the 
scene  to  decide  the  sum  to  demand  from  Germany 
and  to  control  its  payment.  Also  even  after  Ger- 
many was  disarmed  a  portion  of  her  territory  must 
remain  in  the  Allies'  hands  as  a  guarantee  for  the 
execution  of  the  treaty. 

The  reason  why  France  has  always  been  opposed 
to  a  rapid  conclusion  of  the  indemnity  question  is 
that  she  may  continue  to  have  the  right,  in  view  of 
the  question  remaining  still  open,  to  occupy  the  left 
bank  of  the  Ehine  and  to  keep  the  bridgeheads  indi- 
cated in  the  treaty. 

The  thesis  supported  by  Clemenceau  at  the  Con- 
ference was  a  simple  one :  Germany  must  recognize 
the  total  amount  of  her  debt;  it  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  we  recognize  it. 

I  demand  in  the  name  of  the  French  Government,  and 


208  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

after  having  consulted  my  colleagues,  that  the  Peace  Treaty 
fix  Germany's  debt  to  us  and  indicate  the  nature  of  the 
damages  for  which  reparation  is  due.  We  will  fix  a 
period  of  thirty  years  if  you  so  wish  it,  and  we  will  give 
to  the  Commission,  after  it  has  reduced  the  debt  to  figures, 
the  mandate  to  make  Germany  pay  within  these  thirty 
years  all  she  owes  us.  If  the  whole  debt  can  not  be  paid  in 
thirty  years  the  Commission  will  have  the  right  to  extend 
the  time  for  payment. 

This  scheme  was  agreed  upon.  And  the  thesis  of 
the  compensation  of  damages,  instead  of  that  for 
the  payment  of  the  cost  of  the  war,  prevailed  for  a 
very  simple  reason.  If  they  proposed  to  demand 
for  all  integral  reparations,  and  therefore  the  reim- 
bursement of  the  cost  of  the  war,  the  figures  would 
have  been  enormous.  It  became  necessary  to  reduce 
all  the  credits  proportionally,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
bankruptcy.  Now,  since  in  the  matter  of  the  in- 
demnities France  occupied  the  first  place  (to  begin 
with,  she  asked  sixty-five  per  cent,  of  all  sums  paid 
by  Germany),  she  took  the  greater  part  of  the  in- 
demnities, while  on  the  sums  paid  for  reimburse- 
ment of  cost  of  war,  she  would  only  have  got  less 
than  twenty  per  cent. 

Germany  has  therefore  been  put  under  control 
for  all  the  time  she  will  be  paying  the  indemnities — 
that  is,  for  an  indefinite  period. 

The  valuation  of  the  expenses  for  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  ruined  territories  had  to  be  carried  out 
according  to  the  regulations  of  the  treaty,  and,  the 
prices   having  increased,  the   French   Government 


THE  INDEMNITY  209 

presented  in  July,  1920,  a  first  approximate  valua- 
tion: damages,  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  billions; 
pensions,  fifty-eight  billions ;  in  all,  two  hundred  and 
ten  billions.  In  November,  1920,  the  damages  had 
increased  to  two  hundred  and  eighteen  billions. 

Even  these  figures  represent  something  less 
absurd  than  the  first  demands  and  figures. 

On  September  5,  1919,  the  French  minister  of 
finance,  speaking  in  the  French  Chamber,  calculated 
the  total  of  the  German  indemnities  arising  from  the 
treaty  at  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  billions, 
whose  interest  would  accumulate  until  1921,  after 
which  date  Germany  would  begin  to  pay  her  debt 
in  thirty-four  annual  rates  of  about  twenty-five  bil- 
lions each,  and  thirteen  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  billions  a  year  would  go  to  France. 

Again,  in  November,  1920,  Ogier,  minister  of  the 
liberated  regions,  put  before  the  Reparations  Com- 
mission in  the  name  of  France  a  detailed  memorial 
which  made  the  value  of  the  territories  to  be  recon- 
structed only  for  the  cases  of  private  individuals 
come  to  one  hundred  and  forty  billions,  not  includ- 
ing the  pensions,  damage  to  railways  and  merchant 
marine,  which  totaled  two  hundred  and  eighteen  bil- 
lions, of  which  seventy-seven  billions  were  for  pen- 
sions and  one  hundred  and  forty-one  billions  for 
damages. 

Of  late  the  sense  of  reality  has  begun  to  diffuse 
itself.  The  Minister  Loucheur  himself  has  laughed 
at  the  earlier  figures,  and  has  stated  that  the  dam- 
ages do  not  exceed  eighty  billions. 


210  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

But  the  French  public  has  been  accustomed  for 
some  time  to  take  the  figures  of  Klotz  seriously,  and 
to  discuss  indemnities  of  one  hundred  and  fifty, 
two  hundred  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  billions. 
The  public,  however,  is  not  yet  aware  of  the  real 
position,  and  will  not  be  able  to  arrive  at  a  just 
realization  of  it  without  passing  through  a  serious 
moral  crisis  which  will  be  the  first  secure  element 
of  the  real  peace. 

Setting  aside  all  questions  of  indemnities  from 
Austria-Hungary,  Turkey  and  Bulgaria  (they  have 
nothing  to  give,  can  give  nothing;  on  the  contrary, 
they  ask  and  merit  assistance),  it  is  clear  that  all 
the  indemnities  must  be  paid  by  Germany. 

The  French  totals  of  the  material  damage  claims 
in  the  invaded  districts  have  been  absolutely  fan- 
tastic and  more  exaggerated  than  in  the  case  of 
Belgium,  whose  indemnity  claims  would  lead  one  to 
suppose  the  total  destruction  of  at  least  the  third 
part  of  her  territory,  almost  as  if  she  had  undergone 
the  submersion  of,  say,  ten  thousand  square  meters 
of  her  small  territory. 

This  problem  of  the  indemnities,  limited  to  the 
reparation  of  damages,  and  in  accordance  with  the 
costs  contemplated  in  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  has 
never  been  seriously  tackled.  One  may  even  say  it 
has  not  been  seriously  examined.  And  it  is  deplor- 
able that  there  has  been  created  among  the  public, 
or  among  a  large  part  of  it,  the  conviction  that 
Germany  will  repair  the  damage  of  the  war  by  her 
own  effort.    This  idea,  however,  finds  no  acceptance 


THE  INDEMNITY  211 

in  England  among  serious  persons,  and  in  Italy  no 
one  believes  in  it.  But  in  France  and  Belgium  the 
idea  is  widely  diffused,  and  the  wish  to  spread  the 
belief  is  lively  in  several  sections  of  opinion,  not 
because  intelligent  people  believe  in  the  possibility 
of  effective  payment,  but  with  the  idea  of  putting 
Germany  in  the  light  of  not  maintaining  the  clauses 
of  the  peace,  thus  extending  the  right  to  prolong  the 
military  occupation  and  even  to  aggravate  it.  Ger- 
many, thereby,  is  kept  out  of  the  League  of  Nations 
and  her  dissolution  facilitated.  The  exaggerated  il- 
lusions created  in  France  by  the  conduct  of  the  gov- 
ernment and  by  the  work  of  the  Press  have  brought 
about  an  irremediable  situation.  In  France  no  plan 
for  the  indemnity  which  is  practicable  for  Germany 
is  politically  acceptable. 

John  Maynard  Keynes,  ever  since  the  end  of  1919, 
has  shown  in  his  admirable  book  the  absurdity  of 
asking  for  vast  indemnities,  Germany's  impossibil- 
ity of  paying  them,  and  the  risk  for  all  Europe  of 
following  a  road  leading  to  ruin,  thus  at  the  same 
time  accentuating  the  work  of  disintegration  started 
by  the  treaty.  That  book  had  awakened  a  far-reach- 
ing effect,  but  it  ought  to  have  had  a  still  wider  one, 
and  would  have  had  it  but  for  the  fact  that,  unfor- 
tunately, the  Press  in  free  countries  is  anything  but 
free. 

The  great  industrial  syndicates,  especially  in  the 
steel-making  industry,  which  control  so  large  a  part 
of  the  Press  among  the  majority  of  the  states  of 
Europe,  and  even  beyond  Europe,  find  easy  allies 


212  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

in  the  inadequate  preparation  of  the  major  part  of 
the  journalists  to  discuss  the  most  important  prob- 
lems, and  the  indisposition  on  the  part  of  the  public 
to  examine  those  questions  which  present  difficul- 
ties, and  are  so  rendered  less  convenient  for  dis- 
cussion. 

I  knew  Keynes  during  the  war,  when  he  was  at- 
tached to  the  British  Treasury  and  chief  of  the  de- 
partment charged  to  look  after  the  foreign  ex- 
changes and  the  financial  relations  between  Great 
Britain  and  her  Allies.  A  serious  writer,  a  teacher 
of  economics  of  great  value,  he  brought  to  his  diffi- 
cult task  a  scrupulousness  and  an  exactness  that  bor- 
dered on  mistrust.  As  I  was  at  that  time  minister 
of  the  Treasury  in  Italy,  in  the  bitterest  and  most 
decisive  period  of  the  war,  I  had  frequent  contact 
with  Mr.  Keynes,  and  I  always  admired  his  exact- 
ness and  his  precision.  I  could  not  always  find  it 
in  myself  to  praise  his  friendly  spirit.  But  he  had 
an  almost  mystic  force  of  severity,  and  those  enor- 
mous squanderings  of  wealth,  that  facile  assumption 
of  liabilities  that  characterized  this  period  of  the 
war,  must  have  doubtless  produced  in  him  a  sense 
of  infinite  disgust.  This  state  of  mind  often  made 
him  very  exacting,  and  sometimes  unjustifiably  sus- 
picious. His  word  had  a  decisive  effect  on  the  ac- 
tions of  the  English  Treasury. 

"When  the  war  was  finished,  he  took  part  as  first 
delegate  of  the  English  Treasury  at  the  Peace  Con- 
ference of  Paris,  and  was  substituted  by  the  chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  in  the  Supreme  Economic 


THE  INDEMNITY  213 

Council.  He  quitted  his  office  when  he  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  hopeless  to  look  for  any 
fundamental  change  of  the  peace  treaties. 

His  book  is  not  only  a  document  of  political  up- 
rightness but  the  first  appeal  to  a  sense  of  reality 
which,  after  an  orgy  of  mistakes,  menaces  a  succes- 
sion of  catastrophes.  In  my  opinion  it  merits  a 
serious  reconsideration  as  the  expression  of  a  new 
conscience,  as  well  as  an  expression  of  the  truth, 
which  is  only  disguised  by  the  existing  state  of  exas- 
peration and  violence. 

After  two  years  we  must  recognize  that  all  the 
forecasts  of  Keynes  have  been  borne  out  by  the 
facts:  that  the  exchange  question  has  grown  worse 
in  all  the  countries  which  have  been  in  the  war,  that 
the  absurd  indemnities  imposed  on  the  enemies  can 
not  be  paid,  that  the  depressed  condition  of  the  van- 
quished is  harmful  to  the  victors  almost  in  equal 
measure  with  the  vanquished  themselves,  that  it 
menaces  their  very  existence,  that,  in  fine,  the  sense 
of  dissolution  is  more  wide-spread  than  ever. 

The  moment  has  come  to  make  an  objective  exam- 
ination of  the  indemnity  question,  and  to  discuss  it 
without  any  hesitation. 

Let  us  lay  aside  all  sentiment  and  forget  the  un- 
dertakings of  the  peace  treaties.  Let  us  suppose  that 
the  Entente's  declarations  and  "Wilson's  proposals 
never  happened.  Let  us  imagine  that  we  are  exam- 
ining a  simple  commercial  proposition  stripped  of 
all  sentiment  and  moral  ideas. 

After  a  great  war  it  is  useless  to  invoke  moral 


214  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

sentiments:  men,  while  they  are  blinded  by  hatred, 
recognize  nothing  save  their  passion.  It  is  the  na- 
ture of  war  not  only  to  kill  or  ruin  a  great  number 
of  men,  not  only  to  cause  considerable  material  dam- 
age, but  also,  necessarily,  to  bring  about  states  of 
mind  full  of  hate  which  can  not  be  ended  at  once  and 
which  are  even  refractory  to  the  language  of  reason. 

For  a  long  time  I  myself  have  looked  upon  the 
Germans  with  the  profoundest  hatred.  When  I 
think  of  all  the  persons  of  my  race  dead  in  the  war, 
when  I  look  back  upon  the  fifteen  months  of  anguish 
when  my  first-born  son  was  a  prisoner  of  war  in 
Germany,  I  am  quite  able  to  understand  the  state 
of  mind  of  those  who  made  the  peace  and  the  mental 
condition  in  which  it  was  made.  What  determined 
the  atmosphere  of  the  peace  treaties  was  the  fact 
that  there  was  a  conference  presided  over  by  Cle- 
menceau,  who  remembered  the  Prussians  in  the 
streets  of  Paris  after  the  War  of  1870,  who  desired 
but  on  thing:  the  extermination  of  the  Germans. 
What  created  this  atmosphere,  or  helped  to  create 
it,  was  the  action  of  Marshal  Foch,  who  had  lost  in 
the  war  the  two  persons  dearest  to  him  in  life,  the 
persons  who  attached  him  to  existence. 

But  now  we  must  examine  the  question  not  in  the 
light  of  our  sentiments  or  even  of  our  hatreds.  We 
must  see  quite  calmly  if  the  treaties  are  possible  of 
application  without  causing  the  ruin  of  the  van- 
quished. Then  we  must  ask  ourselves  if  the  ruin  of 
the  vanquished  does  not  bring  in  its  train  the  ruin 
of  the  victors.    Putting  aside,  then,  all  moral  con- 


THE  INDEMNITY  215 

siderations,  let  us  examine  and  value  the  economic 
facts. 

There  is  no  question  that  the  reparation  problem 
exists  solely  in  the  case  of  Germany,  who  has  still  a 
powerful  statal  framework  which  allows  her  to 
maintain  great  efforts,  capable  not  only  of  provid- 
ing her  with  the  means  of  subsistence,  but  also  of 
paying  a  large  indemnity  to  the  victors.  The  other 
vanquished  states  are  more  in  need  of  succor  than 
anything  else. 

What  are  the  reparations? 

Let  us  follow  the  resume  of  them  which  a  repre- 
sentative of  France  made  at  the  signing  of  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles.    They  are  as  follows: 

1.  Germany  is  responsible  for  the  total  of  the  losses 
and  damages  sustained  by  her  victors  inasmuch  as  she 
caused  them. 

2.  Germany,  in  consideration  of  the  permanent  diminu- 
tion of  her  resources,  resulting  from  the  Peace  Treaty,  is 
only  obliged  (but  is  obliged  without  restrictions  or  reserva- 
tions) to  make  payment  for  the  direct  damages  and  the 
pensions  as  set  forth  in  Schedule  I  of  Clause  vm  of  the 
treaty. 

3.  Germany  must  pay  before  May  1,  1921,  not  less  than 
twenty  billion  gold  marks  or  make  equivalent  payment  in 
kind. 

4.  On  May  1  the  Keparations  Commission  will  fix  the 
total  amount  of  the  German  debt. 

5.  This  debt  must  be  liquidated  by  annual  payments 
whose  totals  are  to  be  fixed  annually  by  the  Commission. 

6.  The  payments  will  continue  for  a  period  of  thirty 
years,  or  longer  if  by  that  time  the  debt  is  not  extinguished. 


216  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

7.  Germany  will  issue  one  hundred  billion  of  gold 
marks  of  bearer  bonds,  and  afterward  all  such  issues  as 
the  Reparations  Commission  shall  demand,  until  the 
amount  of  the  debt  be  reached  in  order  to  permit  the  stabili- 
zation of  credit. 

8.  The  payments  will  be  made  in  money  and  in  kind. 
The  payments  in  kind  will  be  made  in  coal,  live  stock, 
chemical  products,  ships,  machines,  furniture,  etc.  The 
payments  in  specie  consist  of  coin,  of  Germany's  credits, 
public  and  private,  abroad,  and  of  a  first  charge  on  all 
the  effects  and  resources  of  the  Empire  and  the  German 
States. 

9.  The  Reparations  Commission,  charged  with  seeing 
to  the  execution  of  this  clause,  shall  have  powers  of  con- 
trol and  decision.  It  will  be  a  commission  for  Germany's 
debt  with  wider  powers.  Called  upon  to  decide,  according 
to  equity,  justice  and  good  faith,  without  being  bound  by 
any  codex  or  special  legislation,  it  has  obtained  from 
Germany  an  irrevocable  recognition  of  its  authority.  Its 
duty  is  to  supervise  until  the  extinction  of  the  debt,  Ger- 
many's situation,  her  financial  operations,  her  effects,  her 
capacity  for  production,  her  provisioning,  her  production. 
This  commission  must  decide  what  Germany  can  pay  each 
year,  and  must  see  that  her  payments,  added  to  the  budget, 
fall  upon  her  taxpayers  at  least  to  the  extent  of  the  allied 
country  most  heavily  taxed.  Its  decisions  shall  be  carried 
out  immediately  and  receive  immediate  application,  with- 
out any  other  formality.  The  commission  can  effect  all 
the  changes  deemed  necessary  in  the  German  laws  and  regu- 
lations, as  well  as  all  the  sanctions,  whether  of  a  financial, 
economic  or  military  nature  arising  from  established  vio- 
lations of  the  clauses  put  under  its  control.  And  Germany 
is  obliged  not  to  consider  these  " sanctions"  as  hostile  acts. 


THE  INDEMNITY  217 

In  order  to  guarantee  the  payments  an  Inter-Allied 
Army — in  reality  a  Franco-Belgian  Army — occupies 
the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  and  is  stationed  at  the 
bridgeheads.  Germany  is  completely  helpless,  and 
has  lost  all  the  features  of  a  sovereign  state  inas- 
much as  she  is  subject  to  "controls"  in  a  way  that 
Turkey  never  was.  In  modern  history  we  can  find 
no  parallel  for  this  state  of  things.  These  are  con- 
ditions which  alter  the  very  basis  of  civilization  and 
the  relations  between  peoples.  Such  procedure  has 
been  unknown  in  Europe  for  centuries.  The  public 
has  become  accustomed  in  certain  countries  to  con- 
sider responsible  for  the  war  not  the  government 
that  wished  it  or  the  German  people,  but  the  future 
generations.  Thus  the  indemnities  are  to  be  paid — 
were  such  conditions  possible — in  thirty  years  and 
for  at  least  twenty  years  afterward  by  people  still 
unborn  at  the  time  of  the  war.  This  cursing  of  the 
guilty  people  has  no  parallel  in  modern  history. 
We  must  go  back  to  the  early  ages  of  humanity  to 
find  anything  of  the  kind. 

But  even  the  most  inhuman  policies,  such  as  Ger- 
many has  never  adopted  in  her  victories,  although 
she  has  been  accused  of  every  cruelty,  can  find  at 
least  some  justification  if  they  had  a  useful  effect 
on  the  countries  which  have  wished  and  accept  re- 
sponsibility for  them.  The  conqueror  has  his  rights. 
Julius  Caesar  killed  millions  of  Germans  and  re- 
tarded perhaps  for  some  centuries  the  invasion  of 
Eome.  But  the  practises  established  by  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles  are  in  effect  equally  harmful  to  victors 


218  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

and  vanquished,  though  maybe  in  unequal  measure, 
and  in  any  case  prepare  the  dissolution  of  Europe. 

I  had  my  share  in  arranging  at  San  Remo  the 
Spa  Conference,  in  the  hope  and  with  the  desire  of 
discussing  frankly  with  the  Germans  what  sum  they 
could  pay  by  way  of  indemnity  without  upsetting 
their  economy  and  damaging  severely  that  of  the 
Allies.  But  the  ministerial  crisis  that  took  place  in 
June,  1920,  prevented  me  from  participating  at  the 
Spa  Conference;  and  the  profitable  action  which 
Great  Britain  had  agreed  to  initiate  in  the  common 
interest,  ours  as  well  as  France's,  could  not  be  car- 
ried through.  The  old  mistakes  continued  to  be  re- 
peated, though  many  attenuations  have  come  about 
and  the  truth  begins  to  appear  even  for  those  most 
responsible  for  past  errors. 

We  shall  have  to  examine  with  all  fair-minded- 
ness whether  Germany  is  in  a  position  to  pay  in 
whole  or  in  part  the  indemnity  established  or  rather 
resulting  from  the  treaty.  France  especially  be- 
lieves, or  has  said  on  several  occasions  she  believes, 
that  Germany  can  pay  without  difficulty  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  billions. 

After  many  stupidities  and  many  exaggerations 
which  have  helped  considerably  to  confuse  the  pub- 
lic, confronted  by  the  new  difficulties  which  have 
arisen,  new  arrangements  for  the  payment  of  the 
indemnity  have  been  established.  On  May  11,  in 
view  of  the  situation  which  had  arisen,  the  Allies 
proposed  and  Germany  accepted  a  fresh  scheme  for 
the  payment  of  the  reparations.     Germany  is  con- 


THE  INDEMNITY  219 

strained  to  pay  every  year  in  cash  and  in  kind  the 
equivalent  of  five  hundred  million  dollars,  plus 
twenty-six  per  cent,  of  the  total  of  her  exports. 

The  rest  of  the  agreement  refers  to  the  procedure 
for  the  issue  of  bonds  guaranteed  on  the  indicated 
payments,  to  the  constitution  of  a  guarantee  com- 
mittee, and  to  the  date  of  payment.  Probably  Ger- 
many will  have  been  able  to  get  through  the  year 
1921  without  insurmountable  difficulties. 

At  Spa,  on  April  27,  1921,  the  proportionate  sums 
assessed  for  each  of  the  conquering  powers  were 
established  on  a  total  indemnity  notably  reduced  in 
comparison  with  the  earlier  absurd  demands. 

The  Conference  of  Brussels  (December  16  to  22, 
1920),  the  decisions  of  Paris  (January  24  to  30, 
1921),  the  first  conference  (March  1  to  7,  1921)  and 
the  second  conference  of  London  (April  29  to  May  5, 
1921)  have  successively  modified  the  earlier  de- 
mands. They  constitute  so  many  approximations  to 
the  unrecognized  truth  the  open  admission  of  which 
is  prevented  by  the  French  Government. 

But  putting  aside  the  idea  of  an  indemnity  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty,  one  hundred  and  fifty,  or 
even  one  hundred  billions  of  gold  marks,  it  will  be 
well  to  examine  in  a  concrete  form  what  Germany 
can  be  made  to  pay,  and  whether  the  useless  and 
elaborate  structure  of  the  Reparations  Commission 
with  its  powers  of  regulating  the  internal  life  of 
Germany  for  thirty  years  or  more,  ought  not  to  be 
discontinued  for  a  simpler  plan  more  in  sympathy 
with  civilized  notions. 


220  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Shortly  before  the  war,  according  to  successive 
statistics,  the  private  wealth  of  Prance  did  not 
amount  to  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  billions. 
The  wealth  of  France,  according  to  successive  val- 
uations, was  calculated  at  two  hundred  and  eight 
billion  francs  in  1905  (De  Foville),  at  two  hundred 
and  fourteen  billions  in  1908  (Turquan),  and  at 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  billions  according  to 
other  authors.  The  wealth  of  Belgium,  according  to 
official  statistics  published  by  the  Belgian  Ministry 
of  Finance  in  1913,  amounted  to  rather  less  than 
thirty  billion  francs.  The  estimate  is  perhaps  a 
trifle  low.  But  this  official  figure  must  not  be  con- 
sidered as  being  a  long  way  from  the  truth.  At  cer- 
tain moments  Belgium's  demands  have  surpassed 
even  the  total  of  her  national  wealth,  while  the  dam- 
ages have  not  been  more  than  some  billions. 

The  value  of  the  land  in  France  was  calculated 
before  the  war  at  between  sixty-two  and  seventy- 
eight  billions;  the  value  of  the  buildings,  according 
to  I'Anmiaire  Statistique  de  la  France,  at  fifty- 
nine  and  one-half  billions.  The  territory  occupied 
by  the  Germans  is  not  more  than  a  tenth  of  the 
national  territory.  Even  taking  into  consideration 
the  loss  of  industrial  buildings  it  is  very  difficult  to 
arrive  at  the  figure  of  fifteen  billions.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  true  that  the  Minister  Loucheur  declared 
on  February  17,  1919,  in  the  French  Chamber  that 
the  reconstruction  of  the  devastated  regions  in 
France  required  seventy-five  billions — that  is,  very 
much  more  than  double  the  private  wealth  of  all  the 
inhabitants  of  all  the  occupied  regions. 


THE  INDEMNITY  221 

In  all  the  demands  for  compensation  of  the 
various  states  we  have  seen  not  so  much  a  real  and 
precise  estimate  of  the  damages  (which  is  impos- 
sible) as  a  kind  of  fixing  of  credit  in  the  largest 
measure  possible  in  order  that  in  the  successive 
reductions  each  state  should  still  have  proportion- 
ally an  advantageous  share. 

Making  his  calculation  with  a  generosity  which  I 
assert  to  be  excessive  (and  I  assert  this  as  a  result 
of  an  accurate  study  of  the  question,  which  perhaps 
I  may  have  occasion  to  publish),  Keynes  maintains 
that  the  damages  for  which  Germany  should  be 
made  to  pay  come  to  fifty-three  billions  for  all  losses 
on  land  and  sea  and  for  the  effects  of  aerial  bom- 
bardments— fifty-three  billions  of  francs  all  told, 
including  the  damages  of  France,  Great  Britain, 
Italy,  Belgium,  Serbia,  etc.!  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  damages  reach  forty  billions  of  gold  marks,  un- 
less, of  course,  we  calculate  in  them  the  pensions 
and  allowances. 

But  these  figures  have  but  small  interest,  since 
the  demands  have  been  almost  entirely  purely 
arbitrary. 

What  we  must  see  is  whether  Germany  can  pay, 
and  whether,  with  a  regime  of  restrictions  and  vio- 
lence, she  can  hand  over,  not  the  many  billions  which 
have  been  announced  and  which  have  been  a  deplor- 
able speculation  on  the  ignorance  of  the  public,  but 
a  considerable  sum,  such  as  is  that  which  many 
folk  still  delude  themselves  it  is  possible  to  have. 

Germany  has  already  turned  over  all  her  trans- 
ferable wealth;  the  gold  in  her  banks,  her  colonies, 


222  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

her  commercial  fleet,  a  large  and  even  the  best  part 
of  her  railway  material,  her  submarine  cables,  her 
foreign  credits,  the  property  of  her  private  citizens 
in  the  victorious  countries,  etc.  Everything  that 
could  be  handed  over,  even  in  opposition  to  the 
rights  of  nations  as  such  are  known  in  modern  civil- 
ized states,  Germany  has  given.  She  has  also 
mortgaged  all  her  national  goods.  What  can  she 
give  now? 

Germany  can  pay  in  three  ways  only : 

1.  Merchandise  and  food  products  on  account  of 
the  indemnity:  coal,  machines,  chemical  products, 
etc. 

2.  Credits  abroad  coming  from  the  sale  of  mer- 
chandise. If  Germany  exports,  that  is  sells  eight 
billion  marks'  worth  of  goods  abroad,  she  pays  two 
billions  to  the  Reparations  Commission. 

3.  Property  of  private  citizens.  Germany  can 
enslave  herself,  ceding  the  property  of  her  private 
citizens  to  foreign  states  or  citizens  to  be  disposed 
of  as  they  wish. 

Excluding  this  last  form,  which  would  constitute 
slavery  pure  and  simple,  as  useless,  as  impossible, 
and  calculated  to  parallel  the  methods  in  use  among 
barbarous  peoples,  there  only  remain  the  first  two 
methods  of  payment  which  we  will  examine  briefly. 
But  this  latter  form  is  only  partly  applied  because 
of  the  ruin  of  exchange.  Outsiders  are  buying  at 
low  prices  German  enterprises  or  partnerships  in 
Germany. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Germany,  even  before 


THE  INDEMNITY  223 

the  war,  was  in  difficulties  for  insufficient  avenues 
of  development,  considering  the  restricted  nature  of 
her  territory  and  the  density  of  her  population. 
Her  territory,  smaller  than  that  of  France  and 
much  less  fertile,  must  now  feed  a  population  which 
stands  to  that  of  France  as  three  to  two. 

If  we  have  had  gigantic  war  losses,  Germany, 
who  fought  on  all  the  fronts,  has  had  losses  certainly 
not  inferior  to  ours.  She  too  has  had,  in  larger  or 
smaller  proportion,  her  dead  and  her  mutilated. 
She  has  known  the  most  atrocious  sufferings  from 
hunger.  Thus  her  productive  power  is  much  di- 
minished, not  only  on  account  of  the  grave  diffi- 
culties in  which  her  people  find  themselves  (and  the 
development  of  tuberculosis  is  a  terrible  index),  but 
also  for  the  lowered  productive  capacity  of  her 
working  classes. 

The  statistics  published  by  the  Office  of  Public 
Health  of  the  Empire  (Reichsgesundheitsamt)  and 
those  given  in  England  by  Professor  Starling  and 
laid  before  the  British  Parliament,  leave  no  doubt 
in  the  matter. 

Germany  has  had  more  than  one  million  eight 
hundred  thousand  killed  and  many  more  than  four 
million  wounded.  She  has  her  mass  of  orphans, 
widows  and  invalids.  Taken  altogether  the  struc- 
ture of  her  people  has  become  much  worse. 

What  constituted  the  great  productive  force  of 
the  German  people  was  not  only  its  capacity  to 
work,  but  the  industrial  organization  which  she  had 
created  with  fifty  years   of  effort  at  home   and 


224  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

abroad  with  ninny  sacrifices.  Now  Germany  has 
not  only  lost  eight  per  cent,  of  her  population,  but 
twenty-five  per  cent,  of  her  territory,  from  which 
cereals  and  potatoes  were  produced,  and  ten  to 
twelve  per  cent,  of  her  live  stock,  etc. 

We  have  already  seen  the  enormous  losses  sus- 
tained by  Germany  in  coal,  iron  and  potash. 

The  most  intelligent  and  able  working  classes, 
created  by  the  most  patient  efforts,  have  been  re- 
duced to  the  state  of  becoming  revolutionary  ele- 
ments. By  taking  away  from  Germany  at  a  stroke 
her  merchant  marine,  about  sixty  thousand  sailors 
have  been  thrown  on  the  streets  and  their  skill  made 
useless. 

Germany,  therefore,  impoverished  in  her  agricul- 
tural territory,  deprived  of  a  good  part  of  her  raw 
materials,  with  a  population  weakened  in  its  produc- 
tive qualities,  has  lost  a  good  part  of  her  productive 
capacity  because  all  her  organization  abroad  has 
been  broken,  and  everything  which  served  as  a 
means  of  exchange  of  products,  such  as  her  mer- 
chant fleet,  has  been  destroyed.  Moreover,  Ger- 
many encounters  everywhere  obstacles  and  suspic- 
ion. Impeded  from  developing  herself  on  the  seas, 
held  up  to  ridicule  by  the  absurd  corridor  of  Danzig, 
whereby  there  is  a  Polish  State  in  German  terri- 
tory, she  can  not  help  seeking  life  and  raw  materials 
in  Russia. 

In  these  conditions  she  must  not  only  feed  her 
vast  population,  not  only  produce  sufficient  to  pre- 
vent her  from  falling  into  misery,  but  must  also  pay 


THE  INDEMNITY  225 

an  indemnity  which  fertile  fantasies  have  made  a 
deceived  Europe  believe  should  amount  even  to 
three  hundred  and  fifty  billions  of  gold  marks,  and 
which  even  now  is  supposed  by  seemingly  reason- 
able people  to  be  able  to  surpass  easily  the  sum  of  a 
hundred  billions. 

Could  France  or  Italy,  by  any  kind  of  sacrifice, 
have  paid  any  indemnities  after  ending  the  war! 
Germany  has  not  only  to  live  and  make  reparation, 
but  to  maintain  an  Inter- Allied  Army  of  Occupation 
and  the  heavy  machinery  of  the  Eeparations  Com- 
mission, (on  which  every  worthless  individual  is 
receiving  compensation  greater  than  that  of  the 
prime  minister  of  his  country)  and  must  prepare  to 
pay  an  indemnity  for  thirty  years.  France  and 
Italy  have  preserved  their  colonies  (Italy 's  do  not 
amount  to  much),  their  merchant  fleets  (which 
have  much  increased),  their  foreign  organization. 
Germany,  without  any  of  these  things,  is  to  find 
herself  able  to  pay  an  indemnity  which  a  brazen- 
faced and  ignorant  Press  deceived  the  public  into 
believing  could  amount  to  twenty  or  twenty-five 
billions  a  year. 

Taking  by  chance  Helferich's  book,  which  valued 
the  annual  capitalization  at  ten  billions,  the  differ- 
ence between  an  annual  production  of  forty-three 
billions  and  a  consumption  of  thirty-three  billions, 
inexpert  persons  have  said  that  Germany  can  pay 
without  difficulty  ten  billions,  plus  a  premium  on 
her  exports,  plus  a  sufficient  quantity  of  goods  and 
products. 


226  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

One  becomes  humiliated  when  one  sees  news- 
papers of  serious  reputation  and  politicians  deemed 
not  to  be  unimportant  reasoning  in  language  so 
false. 

The  estimates  of  private  wealth,  about  which  the 
economists  make  experiments,  and  on  which  I  my- 
self have  written  much  in  the  past,  have  a  relative 
value.  It  may  be  argued  that  before  the  war  the 
total  of  all  private  patrimony  in  Germany  surpassed 
by  but  little  three  hundred  billions  of  marks;  and 
this  is  a  valuation  made  upon  generous  criteria. 

But  when  it  is  said  that  the  annual  capitalization 
of  Germany  was  ten  billion,  that  is  not  to  say  that 
ten  billion  of  capital  is  deposited  in  the  banks  ready 
to  be  transferred  at  will.  Capitalization  means  the 
creation  of  instruments  of  production.  The  national 
capital  increases  in  proportion  as  these  are  in- 
creased. Therefore  the  best  way  of  examining  the 
annual  capitalization  of  a  country  is  to  see  how 
many  new  industries  have  arisen,  to  what  extent  the 
old  ones  have  been  improved,  what  improvements 
have  been  introduced  into  agriculture,  what  new  in- 
vestments have  been  made,  etc. 

If  the  annual  capitalization  of  Germany  before 
the  war  was  scarcely  ten  billions  of  marks,  it  was 
too  small  for  an  empire  of  some  sixty-seven  million 
persons.  I  believe  that  in  reality  it  was  larger.  But 
even  if  it  came  to  fifteen  billion,  it  represented  a 
very  small  figure. 

The  population  in  the  progressive  countries  aug- 
ments every  year.    In  Germany,  before  the  war,  in 


THE  INDEMNITY  227 

the  period  1908-1913,  the  population  increased  on  an 
average  by  843,000  persons  a  year,  the  difference  be- 
tween the  births  and  the  deaths.  In  other  words, 
the  annual  increase  of  the  population  per  annum 
was  at  the  rate  of  thirteen  per  thousand. 

As  in  certain  districts  of  Italy  the  peasants  plant 
a  row  of  trees  on  the  birth  of  very  son,  so  among  na- 
tions it  is  necessary  to  increase  the  national  wealth 
at  least  in  proportion  to  the  newly  born.  Supposing 
that  the  private  wealth  of  the  German  citizens  was 
from  three  hundred  to  three  hundred  and  fifty  bil- 
lions of  marks  (an  exaggeration,  doubtless),  it 
would  mean  that  the  wealth  increased  each  year  by 
a  thirteenth  part  or  rather  more.  The  difference 
between  the  increase  in  population  and  the  increase 
in  wealth  constituted  the  effective  increase  in 
wealth,  but  always  in  a  form  not  capable  of  being 
immediately  handled.  To  plant  trees,  build  work- 
shops, utilize  water-power:  all  this  stands  for  the 
output  of  so  much  force.  One  may  undertake  such 
works  or  not,  but  in  any  case  the  result  can  not  im- 
mediately be  given  to  the  enemy. 

This  is  so  obvious  as  to  be  banal. 

To  seek  to  propagate  the  idea  that  Germany  can 
give  that  which  constitutes  her  annual  capitalization 
either  wholly  or  in  great  part  is  an  example  of  ex- 
treme ignorance  of  economic  facts. 

It  is  positively  painful  to  listen  to  certain  types 
of  argument. 

A  French  minister  has  said  that  the  success  of  the 
war  loans  for  151  billions  in  Germany,  and  the  in- 


228  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

crease  of  bank  deposits  for  a  sum  of  28  billions, 
coinciding  with  an  increase  of  capital  of  45  billions 
in  stock  companies,  demonstrate  that  Germany  has 
saved  at  least  180  billions  in  four  years.  Waiving 
the  exactness  of  these  figures,  it  is  really  sad  to  ob- 
serve reasoning  of  this  type.  How  can  the  public 
have  an  idea  of  the  reality? 

Let  us  apply  the  same  reasoning  to  France.  We 
must  say  that  inasmuch  as  France  before  the  war 
had  a  public  debt  of  32  billions,  and  now  has  a  debt 
of  265  billions,  without  calculating  what  she  owes  to 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  France,  by 
reason  of  the  war,  has  immensely  enriched  herself, 
since,  leaving  aside  the  debt  contracted  abroad  and 
the  previous  debt,  she  has  saved  during  the  war  200 
billions,  quite  apart  from  the  increase  in  bank  de- 
posits and  the  increase  in  capital  of  stock  compan- 
ies. The  war  has  therefore  immensely  enriched  her. 
In  reality  we  are  face  to  face  with  one  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  intoxication  brought  about  by  paper 
money,  by  means  of  which  it  has  been  possible  at 
certain  times  for  the  public  to  believe  that  the  war 
had  increased  wealth.  Other  features  of  this  phe- 
nomenon we  have  in  the  wretched  example  of  the 
capitalist  classes,  after  which  it  was  not  unnatural 
that  the  people  should  give  way  to  a  great  increase 
in  consumption,  should  demand  high  wages  and  of- 
fer little  work  in  return  at  the  very  time  when  it  was 
most  necessary  to  work  more  and  consume  less. 
There  is  small  cause  for  wonder  that  certain  erro- 
neous ideas  are  diffused  among  the  public  when  they 


THE  INDEMNITY  229 

have  their  being  in  those  very  sophisms  according 
to  which  the  indemnity  to  be  paid  by  the  beaten 
enemy  will  pay  all  the  debts  and  losses  of  the  con- 
quering nations. 

We  are  told  that  Germany,  being  responsible  for 
the  war,  must  impose  on  herself  a  regime  of  restric- 
tions and  organize  herself  as  an  exporting  nation  for 
the  payment  of  the  reparation  debts. 

Here  again  the  question  can  be  considered  in  two 
ways,  according  as  it  is  proposed  to  allow  Germany 
a  free  commerce  or  to  impose  on  her  a  series  of 
forced  cessions  of  goods  in  payment  of  the  repara- 
tions. Both  hypotheses  can  be  entertained,  but 
both,  as  we  shall  see,  lead  to  economic  disorder  in 
the  conquering  states,  if  these  relations  are  to  be 
regulated  by  violence. 

It  is  useless  to  dilate  on  the  other  aphorisms,  or 
rather  sophisms,  which  were  seriously  discussed  at 
the  Paris  Conference,  and  which  even  had  the  honor 
of  being  sustained  by  the  technical  experts : 

1.  That  it  is  not  important  to  know  what  Ger- 
many can  pay,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  know  what  she 
ought  to  pay. 

2.  That  no  one  can  foresee  what  immense  re- 
sources Germany  will  develop  within  thirty  or  forty 
years,  and  what  Germany  will  not  be  able  to  pay  will 
be  paid  by  the  Allies. 

3.  That  Germany,  under  the  stimulus  of  a  mili- 
tary occupation,  will  increase  her  production  in  an 
unheard-of  manner. 

4.  The  obligation  arising  from  the  treaty  is  an 


230  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

absolute  one ;  the  capacity  to  pay  can  only  be  taken 
into  consideration  to  establish  the  number  and 
amount  of  the  annual  payments;  the  total  must  in 
any  case  be  paid  within  thirty  years  or  more. 

5.  Elle  ou  nous.  Germany  must  pay;  if  she 
doesn't  the  Allies  must  pay.  It  is  not  necessary  that 
Germany  free  herself  by  a  certain  date;  it  is  only 
necessary  that  she  pay  all. 

6.  Germany  has  not  to  discuss,  only  to  pay.  Let 
time  illustrate  what  is  at  present  unforeseeable,  etc., 
etc. 

If  we  exclude  the  third  means  of  payment  Ger- 
many has  two  ways  open  to  her.  First  of  all  she 
can  give  goods.  What  goods!  When  we  speak  of 
goods  we  really  mean  coal.  Now,  as  we  have  seen, 
according  to  the  treaty  Germany  must  furnish  for 
ten  years  to  Belgium,  Italy,  and  France  especially, 
quantities  of  coal,  which  in  the  first  five  years  run 
from  39%  to  42  millions  of  tons,  and  in  the  following 
five  years  come  to  a  maximum  of  about  32  millions. 
And  all  this  when  she  has  lost  the  Saar  coal  fields 
and  is  faced  with  the  threatening  situation  in  Upper 
Silesia. 

Germany's  exports  reached  their  maximum  in 
1913,  when  the  figures  touched  10,097  millions  of 
marks,  excluding  precious  metals.  Grouping  ex- 
ports and  imports  in  categories,  the  millions  of 
marks  were  distributed  as  follows : 

Imports.  Exports. 

Foodstuffs    2,759        1,035 

Livestock 289  7.4 


THE  INDEMNITY  231 

Raw  materials 5,003        1,518 

Semi-manufactured  goods. .   5,003        1,139 
Manufactured  goods 1,478        6,395 

About  one-fifth  of  the  entire  exports  was  in  iron 
and  machine  products  (1,337  [millions]  articles  in 
iron,  680  machines) ;  722  millions  from  coal  (as 
against  imports  of  other  qualities  of  289),  658  mil- 
lions of  chemical  products  and  drugs,  446  from  cot- 
ton, 298  paint,  290  techno-electrical  productions,  etc. 

Germany  by  imposing  upon  herself  a  regime  of 
severe  sacrifice  can  give  up  certain  quantities  of  coal 
and  some  products,  but  in  order  to  obtain  payment 
abroad  she  must  not  only  export  but  must  export 
more  than  she  imports.  As  she  now  has  neither 
ships  nor  credit  nor  commercial  organizations 
abroad  she  can  not  balance  her  credits  unless  the  im- 
ports and  exports  balance,  and  she  can  only  make 
payments  to  the  degree  in  which  exports  surpass 
imports. 

In  1920,  notwithstanding  all  her  efforts,  the  ex- 
ports of  Germany  were  worth  five  billion  gold  marks 
and  the  imports  5.4  billions.  Her  balance  for  the 
first  half  of  1921  is  even  more  unfavorable. 

Every  demand  for  payment  from  Germany  ruins 
her  credit  abroad  in  such  a  way  as  to  further  depre- 
ciate the  value  of  the  mark  and  to  render  difficult 
any  further  payment. 

What  goods  can  Germany  give  in  payment  of  the 
indemnity?  We  have  seen  how  she  has  lost  a  very 
large  part  of  her  iron  and  a  considerable  quantity 
of  her  coal. 


232  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

All  the  economic  strength  of  Germany  was  based 
upon : 

(a)  The  proper  use  of  her  reserves  of  coal  and 
iron,  which  allowed  her  to  develop  enormously  those 
industries  which  are  based  on  these  two  elements. 

(b)  On  her  transport  and  tariff  system,  which 
enabled  her  to  fight  any  competition. 

(c)  On  her  powerful  overseas  commercial  organ- 
ization. 

Now,  by  effect  of  the  treaty,  these  three  great 
forces  have  been  entirely  or  in  part  destroyed. 

What  goods  can  Germany  give  in  payment  of  the 
indemnity,  and  what  goods  can  she  offer  without 
ruining  the  internal  production  of  the  Entente 
countries?  Let  us  suppose  that  Germany  gives 
machines,  dyes,  wagons,  locomotives,  etc.  Then  for 
this  very  fact  the  countries  of  the  Entente,  already 
suffering  by  unemployment,  would  soon  see  their 
factories  obliged  to  shut  down.  Germany  must 
therefore,  above  all,  give  raw  materials;  but  since 
she  is  herself  a  country  that  imports  raw  materials, 
and  has  an  enormous  and  dense  population,  she  is 
herself  obliged  to  import  raw  materials  for  the  fun- 
damental needs  of  her  existence. 

If  we  examine  Germany's  commerce  in  the  five 
years  prior  to  the  war — that  is,  in  the  five  years  of 
her  greatest  boom — we  shall  find  that  the  imports 
always  exceeded  the  exports.  In  the  two  years  be- 
fore the  war,  1912  and  1913,  the  imports  were 
respectively  10,691  and  10,770  millions,  and  the  ex- 
ports 8,956  and  10,097  millions.    In  some  years  the 


THE  INDEMNITY  233 

difference  even  exceeded  two  billions,  and  was  com- 
pensated by  credits  abroad,  and  by  the  payment  of 
freight  and  with  the  remittances  (always  consider- 
able) of  the  German  emigrants.    All  this  is  lost. 

Exported  goods  can  yield  to  the  exporter  a  profit 
of,  let  us  suppose,  ten,  twelve,  or  twenty  per  cent. 
For  the  Allies  to  take  an  income  from  the  Custom 
returns  means  in  practise  reducing  the  exports.  In 
fact,  in  Germany  production  must  be  carried  on  at 
such  low  prices  as  to  compensate  for  the  difference, 
or  the  exports  must  be  reduced. 

In  the  first  case  (which  is  not  likely,  since  Ger- 
many succeeds  only  with  difficulty,  owing  to  her 
exchange,  in  obtaining  raw  materials,  and  must  en- 
counter worse  difficulties  in  this  respect  than  other 
countries),  Germany  would  be  preparing  the  ruin  of 
the  other  countries  in  organizing  forms  of  produc- 
tion which  are  superior  to  those  of  all  her  rivals. 
Germany  would  therefore  damage  all  her  creditors, 
especially  in  the  foreign  markets. 

In  the  second  case — the  reduction  of  exports — one 
would  have  the  exactly  opposite  effect  to  that  im- 
agined in  the  program  proposed;  that  is,  the  in- 
demnities would  become  unpayable. 

In  terms  of  francs  or  lire  at  par  with  the  dollar, 
Germany's  exportations  in  1920  have  amounted  to 
7,250  millions.    In  1921  an  increase  may  be  foreseen. 

If  Germany  has  to  pay  in  cash  and  kind  2,500  mil- 
lions of  marks  at  par,  plus  26  per  cent,  of  the  total 
of  her  exports,  then  supposing  an  export  trade  of 
eight  billions,  she  will  have  to  give  2,040  billions,  or 


234  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

in  all  4,540  billions  of  marks.  Thus  we  arrive  by- 
stages  at  less  hyperbolical  figures,  coming  clown 
from  the  twenty-five  billions  a  year  to  something 
less  than  a  fifth.  But  to  come  to  grips  with  reality, 
Germany  in  all  ways,  it  must  be  admitted,  can  not 
give  more  than  two  billions  a  year  in  raw  materials 
and  goods,  if,  indeed,  it  is  desired  that  an  indemnity 
be  paid. 

Notwithstanding  her  great  resources,  France 
would  not  be  in  a  condition  to  pay  abroad  two  bil- 
lions a  year  without  ruining  her  exchange,  which 
would  drop  at  once  to  the  level  of  Germany's.  Italy 
with  difficulty  could  pay  one  billion. 

France  and  Italy  are  honest  countries,  yet  theyr 
can  not  pay  their  war  creditors,  and  have  not  been 
able,  and  are  not  able,  to  pay  any  share  of  their  debt 
either  to  the  United  States  of  America  or  to  Great 
Britain.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  up  to  the  present  they 
have  paid  nothing,  and  the  interest  continues  to  ac- 
cumulate with  the  capital. 

Why  have  neither  France  nor  Italy  jet  started  to 
pay  some  of  their  debt!  Having  won  the  war, 
France  has  had  all  she  could  have — fertile  territo- 
ries, new  colonies,  an  abundance  of  raw  material,  and 
above  all  iron  and  potash.  The  simple  explanation 
is  that  which  I  have  given  above. 

Can,  then,  Germany,  who  is  in  a  terrible  condition, 
whose  circulation  promises  ruin,  who  has  no  longer 
credits  nor  organization  abroad,  who  has  a  great 
shortage  in  raw  materials ;  can  Germany  pay  four  or 
five  billions  a  year? 

We  must  also  remember  that  Germany,  in  addi- 


THE  INDEMNITY  235 

tion  to  the  indemnity,  must  pay  the  cost  of  the  Army 
of  Occupation,  which  up  to  the  present  has  amounted 
to  twenty-five  billions  of  paper  marks  a  year,  or 
more  than  1,600  billions  of  francs  at  par.  That  is, 
Germany  has  to  bear  for  the  support  of  the  Allied 
troops  a  charge  equal  to  the  cost  of  maintaining  the 
armies  of  France,  Italy  and  Belgium  before  the  war. 

On  the  19th  of  September,  1921,  the  German  min- 
ister of  finance  presented  to  the  Reichstag  a  report 
which  shows  that  the  expenses  for  the  occupation 
are  calculated  at  408,574,608  gold  marks  every  three 
months,  which  means  more  than  a  million  and  a  half 
gold  marks  a  year,  and  in  figures,  1,634,298,432 
marks. 

In  this  sum  there  were  not  included  the  expenses 
paid  by  the  German  Government  because  of  the  de- 
mands of  troops  and  of  military  authorities  in  the 
occupied  zone,  expenses  which  amounted  to  several 
billion  paper  marks. 

The  balance  sheet  of  the  German  Empire  for  1914 
provided  for  an  ordinary  outlay  of  870,000,000  marks 
and  an  extraordinary  budget  of  338,000,000,  1,208,- 
000,000  marks  in  all ;  and  for  the  navy,  ordinary  ex- 
penses of  221,000,000  marks  and  an  extraordinary 
of  235,000,000,  or  in  all,  456,000,000  marks. 

In  other  words,  the  occupation  of  the  Rhine  which 
is  now  carried  on  practically  and  in  large  part  by 
France  costs  double  the  ordinary  expenses  of  the 
German  Army  and  a  sum  equivalent  to  all  the  ordi- 
nary and  extraordinary  expenses  for  the  army  and 
the  navy  before  the  war. 

While  Germany  is  helpless  and  while  France  has 


236  THE  WRECK  OF  EUEOPE 

an  army  larger  than  any  state  in  Europe  has  ever 
had  in  peace  times,  France,  through  the  occupation 
of  the  Rhine,  has  arranged  that  this  army  should  be 
paid  for  by  Germany. 

And  as  the  final  insult  to  the  conquered  in  the 
Army  of  Occupation  backward  races  are  represent- 
ed. Thus  the  most  cultured  cities  in  Europe  have 
been  and  are  under  negro  violence  which  has  been 
guilty  of  the  most  serious  crimes.  The  German 
population  has  been  subjected,  unnecessarily  and  in 
order  to  satisfy  the  desire  to  offend,  to  physical  and 
moral  trials  unknown  for  centuries  in  civilized  coun- 
tries. In  April  of  1921  there  were  still  on  the  Rhine 
fourteen  or  fifteen  colored  regiments,  nine  to  ten 
from  Algeria,  two  from  Tunis,  three  from  Morocco, 
and  one  from  Madagascar.  There  still  remain,  after 
the  departure  of  two  Senegalese  regiments,  some 
negro  detachments.  Documents  have  shown  at 
length  what  outrages  have  been  perpetrated  by  the 
troops  of  occupation  and  what  crimes  the  negroes 
have  committed.  Henceforth  everybody  knows  that 
the  occupation  has  no  military  aim,  but  (like  the 
confiscation  of  the  Saar  coal  and  the  pretext  of 
enormous  indemnities  and  the  splitting  up  of  Upper 
Silesia)  only  one  aim  is  kept  in  view:  Germany  must 
be  forced  to  the  point  of  moral  exhaustion  and  her 
unity  in  sentiment,  and  indeed  even  her  political 
unity,  broken. 

In  war,  all  violence  and  cruelty  can  not  be  justified 
but  at  least  can  be  explained.  But  when  traditional 
sentiments  and  respect  for  others  no  longer  exist,  all 


THE  INDEMNITY  237 

the  instincts  of  violence  are  given  free  play.  There 
has  never  been  a  war  which  has  not  resulted  in  cer- 
tain outbreaks  of  violent  instincts.  But  what  is  now 
happening  in  peace  times  has  no  parallel  in  modern 
history.  For  some  centuries  back  no  country  in 
Europe  soiled  itself  with  the  guilt  or  contaminated 
itself  with  the  absurdities  of  the  victorious  Entente, 
and  in  the  hour  of  danger  the  Entente  had  pro- 
claimed that  she  desired  the  triumph  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  democracy  and  liberty. 

War  has  its  ups  and  downs;  the  conquerors  of 
to-day  are  the  conquered  of  to-morrow.  Who  can 
foresee  the  future  ?  To  have  abused  victory  in  peace 
and  to  have  reintroduced  methods  of  violence  which 
are  a  discredit  to  civilization  rests  with  the  Entente 
alone. 

If  England  had  lost  the  war  or  if  the  United  States 
had  been  conquered,  I  can  not  imagine  what  they 
would  say  about  a  conquering  Germany  which  had 
had  Liverpool,  New  York,  and  the  principal  ports 
and  industrial  centers  occupied  by  black  savages  and 
by  whites  clamoring  for  indemnities  so  high  that 
there  was  no  remote  possibility  of  their  ever  being 
satisfied.  The  truth  is  that  Germany  and  the  con- 
quered countries  in  the  peace  after  their  victory 
have  never  committed  any  of  the  absurd  actions 
which  have  deprived  the  conquerors  of  all  moral 
prestige.  And  we  should  remember  that  during  the 
war  the  conquerors  declared  (Joint  Declaration  of 
December  30, 1916)  that  they  were  united  for  the  de- 
fense and  the  liberty  of  peoples. 


238  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

In  all  times  men  have  found  it  easier  to  appropri^ 
ate  the  wealth  produced  by  others  than  to  produce 
wealth  with  their  own  labor. 

Thus  Europe  to-day,  instead  of  restoring  peace 
and  making  an  effort  to  re-create  lost  wealth,  is 
destroying  new  wealth  in  the  illusion  of  the  conquer- 
ors, or  at  least  of  some  of  them,  that  they  can  live 
upon  the  efforts  of  the  conquered. 

But  the  economic  delusions  are  becoming  appar- 
ent and  now  even  the  blindest  begin  to  understand 
the  moral  absurdity  in  which  the  conquerors  find 
themselves.  They  have  taken  from  the  conquered 
everything  they  could  and  they  now  declare  on  their 
side  that  they  can  not  discharge  the  obligations  as- 
sumed during  the  war  and  pretend  not  only  that  the 
conquered  shall  pay  but  that  they  shall  work  as 
slaves  to  reconstruct  the  wealth  of  the  conquerors. 

No  financier  seriously  believes  that  the  issue  of 
bonds  authorized  by  the  treaty  for  the  credit  of  the 
Reparations  Commission  has  now  any  probability  of 
success.  Germany's  monetary  circulation  system  is 
falling  to  the  stage  of  assignats,  and  the  time  is  not 
distant  when,  if  intelligent  provision  is  not  made, 
Germany  will  not  be  in  a  position  to  pay  any 
indemnity. 

Obliged  to  pay  only  one  billion  of  gold  marks, 
Germany  has  not  been  able  to  find  this  modest  sum 
(modest,  that  is,  in  comparison  with  all  the  dreams 
about  the  indemnity)  without  contracting  new  for- 
eign debts  and  increasing  her  already  enormous 
paper  circulation.     Each  new  indemnity  payment, 


THE  INDEMNITY  239 

each  new  debt  incurred,  will  only  place  Germany  in 
the  position  of  being  unable  to  make  payments 
abroad. 

Many  capitalists,  even  in  Italy,  inspire  their  Press 
to  state  that  Germany  derives  an  advantage  from 
the  depreciation  of  her  mark,  or,  in  other  words,  is 
content  with  its  low  level.  But  the  high  exchanges 
(and  in  the  case  of  Germany  it  amounts  to  ruin) 
render  almost  impossible  the  purchase  of  raw  ma- 
terials, of  which  Germany  has  need.  With  what 
means  must  she  carry  out  her  payments  if  she  is 
obliged  to  cede  a  large  part  of  her  customs  receipts, 
that  is  of  her  best  form  of  monetary  value,  and  if 
she  has  no  longer  either  credits  or  freights  abroad? 

If  what  is  happening  injured  Germany  alone,  it 
would  be  more  possible  to  explain  it,  if  not  to  justify 
it.  But,  on  the  contrary,  Germany's  fall,  which  is 
also  the  decadence  of  Europe,  profoundly  disturbs 
not  only  the  European  continent,  but  many  other 
producing  countries.  Though  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  partly  escape  the  effect,  they  too  feel 
the  influence  of  it,  not  only  in  their  political  serenity, 
but  in  the  market  of  goods  and  values.  Germany's 
position  is  bound  up  with  that  of  Europe ;  her  con- 
querors can  not  escape  dire  consequences  if  the  erst- 
while enemy  collapses. 

We  must  not  forget  that  before  the  war,  in  the 
years  1912  and  1913,  the  larger  part  of  Germany's 
commerce  was  with  the  United  States,  with  Great 
Britain,  with  Eussia  and  with  Austria-Hungary. 
In  1913  her  commerce  with  the  United  States  repre- 


240  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

seated  alone  little  less  than  two  billions  and  a  half 
of  marks  according  to  the  statistics  of  the  German 
Empire,  and  520  millions  of  dollars  according  to  the 
figures  of  America.  If  we  except  Canada,  which  we 
may  consider  a  territorial  continuation,  the  two  best 
customers  of  the  United  States  were  Great  Britain 
and  Germany.  They  were,  moreover,  the  two  cus- 
tomers whose  imports  largely  exceeded  the  exports. 
The  downfall  of  Germany  will  bring  about  inevit- 
ably a  formidable  crisis  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  coun- 
tries and  consequent  ruin  in  other  countries. 

Up  to  the  present  Germany  has  given  all  she 
could;  any  further  payment  will  cause  a  downfall 
without  changing  the  actual  monetary  position. 
Germany,  after  a  certain  point,  will  not  pay,  but 
will  drag  down  in  her  fall  the  economic  edifices  of 
the  victorious  countries  of  the  Continent. 

All  attempts  at  force  are  useless,  all  impositions 
are  sterile. 

All  this  is  true  and  can  not  be  denied,  but  at  the 
same  time  it  must  be  recognized  that  in  the  first 
move  for  the  indemnity  there  was  a  reasonable  cause 
for  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  Allies. 

If  Germany  had  had  to  pay  no  indemnity  this 
absurd  situation  would  have  come  about,  that  al- 
though exhausted,  Germany  would  have  issued  from 
the  war  without  debts  abroad  and  could  easily  have 
got  into  her  stride  again,  while  France,  Italy,  and 
in  much  less  degree  Great  Britain,  would  have  come 
out  of  the  war  with  heavy  debts. 

This  anxiety  was  not  only  just  and  well  founded, 


THE  INDEMNITY  241 

but  it  is  easy  to  see  why  it  gave  ground  for  a  feeling 
of  grave  disquiet. 

France  and  Italy,  the  two  big  victor  states  of  the 
Continent,  were  only  able  to  carry  on  the  war 
through  the  assistance  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States.  The  war  would  not  have  lasted  long 
without  the  aid  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  which  had  a 
decisive  effect. 

France  has  obtained  all  she  asked  for,  and,  indeed, 
more  than  all  her  previsions  warranted.  Italy  has 
found  herself  in  a  difficult  position.  She  too  has 
realized  her  territorial  aspirations,  though  not  com- 
pletely, and  the  assistance  of  her  Allies  has  not  al- 
ways been  cordial. 

I  have  had,  as  head  of  the  government,  to  oppose 
all  the  agitations,  and  especially  the  Adriatic  adven- 
tures, which  have  caused  an  acute  party  division  in 
Italy.  From  a  sense  of  duty  I  have  also  assumed  all 
responsibility.  But  the  rigidness  of  Wilson  in  the 
Fiume  and  Adriatic  questions  and  the  behavior  of 
some  of  the  European  Allies  have  been  perfectly  un- 
justifiable. In  certain  messages  to  Wilson  during 
my  term  of  government  I  did  not  fail  to  bring  this 
fact  forward.  Certainly,  Jugo-Slavia 's  demands 
must  be  considered  with  a  sense  of  justice,  and  it 
would  have  been  an  error  and  an  injustice  to  at- 
tribute to  Italy  large  tracts  of  territory  in  Dalmatia ; 
but  it  would  have  been  possible  to  find  a  more  rea- 
sonable settlement  for  a  country  which  has  had  such 
sufferings  and  known  such  losses  during  the  war. 
In  any  case,  when  by  the  absurd  system  followed  in 


242  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

the  treaties  so  many  millions  of  Germans,  Magyars, 
Turks  and  Bulgarians  have  been  handed  over  to 
states  like  Serbia,  whose  intemperate  behavior  pre- 
cipitated the  Avar,  or  to  states  like  Greece,  which 
took  only  a  small  and  obligatory  part  in  it,  when 
slates  like  Poland  have  won  their  unity  and  inde- 
pendence without  making  war,  when  Germany  has 
been  dismembered  in  order  to  give  Poland  an  access 
to  the  sea  and  the  ridiculous  situation  of  Danzig 
has  been  created,  when  the  moral  paradox  of  the 
Saar,  which  now  becomes  a  German  Alsace-Lor- 
raine, has  been  set  up,  when  so  many  millions  of 
men  have  been  parceled  out  without  any  criteria,  it 
was  particularly  invidious  to  contest  so  bitterly 
Italy's  claims.  I  can  freely  affirm  this  inasmuch  as, 
risking  all  popularity,  I  have  always  done  my  duty 
as  a  statesman,  pointing  out  that  solution  which 
time  has  proved  to  be  inevitable. 

No  one  can  deny  that  Italy  is  passing  through  a 
period  of  crisis  and  political  ill-health.  Such  states 
of  public  psychology  are  for  peoples  what  neuras- 
thenia is  for  individuals.  On  what  does  it  depend? 
Often  enough  on  reasons  which  can  not  be  isolated 
or  defined.  It  is  a  state  of  mind  which  may  come  to 
an  end  at  any  minute,  and  is  consequent  upon  the 
after-effects  of  the  war.  Rather  than  coming  from 
the  economic  disorder,  it  derives  from  a  malady  of 
the  temperament. 

I  have  never  believed,  in  spite  of  the  agitations 
which  have  been  seen  at  certain  periods,  in  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  revolutionary  movement  in  Italy.    Italy 


THE  INDEMNITY  243 

is  the  only  country  which  has  never  had  religious 
"wars,  the  only  country  which  in  twenty  centuries  has 
never  had  a  real  revolution.  Land  of  an  ancient 
civilization,  prone  to  sudden  bursts  of  enthusiasm, 
susceptible  to  rapid  moods  of  discouragement,  Italy, 
with  all  the  infinite  resources  of  the  Latin  spirit,  has 
always  overcome  the  most  difficult  crises  by  her 
wonderful  adaptive  power.  In  human  history  she  is, 
perhaps,  the  only  country  where  three  great  civiliza- 
tions have  risen  up  one  after  another  in  her  limited 
soil.  If  Italy  can  have  the  minimum  of  coal,  cereals 
and  raw  materials  necessary  to  her  existence  and 
her  economic  revival,  the  traditional  good  sense  of 
the  Italian  people  will  easily  overcome  a  crisis  which 
is  grave,  but  which  affects  in  various  measure  all  the 
victors,  and  is  especially  temperamental. 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  if  all  Europe  is  sick, 
Italy  has  its  own  special  state  of  mind,  which  is  a 
mixture  of  intolerance  and  illusion.  Those  who 
wished  the  war  and  those  who  were  against  it  are 
both  dissatisfied :  the  former  because,  after  the  war, 
Italy  has  not  had  the  compensations  she  expected, 
and  has  had  sufferings  far  greater  than  could  have 
been  imagined;  the  latter  because  they  attribute  to 
the  war  and  the  conduct  of  the  war  the  great  trials 
which  the  nation  has  now  to  face.  This  sickness  of 
the  spirit  is  the  greatest  cause  of  disorder,  since 
malcontent  is  always  the  worst  kind  of  leaven. 

Four  great  countries  decided  the  war:  Great 
Britain,  France,  Italy,  and  the  United  States  of 
America.    Russia  fell  to  pieces  soon,  and  fell  rather 


244  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

on  account  of  her  own  internal  conditions  than  from 
enemy  pressure.  The  action  of  the  United  States 
arrived  late,  but  was  decisive.  Each  country,  how- 
ever, acted  from  a  different  state  of  mind.  France 
had  of  necessity  to  make  war.  Her  territory  was  in- 
vaded, and  all  hope  of  salvation  lay  in  moral  resist- 
ance alone.  Great  Britain  had  to  wage  the  war  out 
of  sense  of  duty.  She  had  guaranteed  the  neutrality 
of  Belgium,  and  could  not  fail  to  keep  her  word  of 
honor.  Two  countries  alone  chose  freely  the  sor- 
rowful way  of  the  war:  Italy  and  the  United  States. 
But  their  sacrifices,  sufferings  and  losses  have  been 
very  different.  During  the  war  the  United  States 
have  been  able  to  develop  their  immense  resources, 
and,  notwithstanding  some  crises,  they  have  come 
out  of  it  much  richer  than  before.  From  being 
debtors  to  Europe  they  have  become  creditors. 
They  had  few  losses  in  men,  and  a  great  develop- 
ment in  wealth.  Italy,  who  after  many  difficulties 
had  developed  in  her  famous  but  too  narrow  terri- 
tory the  germs  of  a  greater  fortune,  has  had,  to- 
gether with  very  heavy  losses  in  men,  heavy  losses 
in  her  wealth. 

Italy  saved  the  destinies  of  France  for  the  first 
time  by  declaring  her  neutrality  on  August  2,  1914, 
and  letting  the  certainty  of  it  be  known  from  July 
30,  as  the  diplomatic  documents  have  shown. 

It  was  that  sudden  and  unexpected  declaration  of 
neutrality  which  rendered  it  possible  for  France  to 
concentrate  all  her  forces  in  the  north  and  to  win 
the  battle  of  the  Marne.    Italy  for  a  second  time 


THE  INDEMNITY  245 

saved  the  destinies  of  the  Entente  by  entering  into 
the  war  (too  precipitately  and  unprepared),  in  May, 
1915,  thus  preventing  the  Austrian  Army,  which  was 
formidable  for  its  technical  organization  and  for  its 
valor,  from  obtaining  the  advantages  it  expected. 

Why  did  Italy  go  to  war? 

The  diplomatic  documents,  which  are  not  all  docu- 
ments of  political  wisdom,*demonstrate  the  anxiety 
of  the  Italian  Government  to  realize  its  Adriatic 
program  and  to  gain  secure  frontiers  against  Aus- 
tria-Hungary and  its  successors.  But  this  was  not 
the  cause  of  the  war;  it  was  rather  a  means  of  ex- 
plaining to  the  people  the  necessity  for  the  war. 
Italy  had  been  for  nearly  thirty-four  years  ally  of 
Austria-Hungary,  and  the  aspirations  of  Italy's 
Adriatic  policy  had  never  disturbed  the  relations 
between  the  two  countries.  The  real  cause  of  Italy's 
war  was  a  sentimental  movement,  a  form  of  extra- 
ordinary agitation  of  the  spirits,  brought  about  by 
the  invasion  of  Belgium  and  the  danger  of  France. 
The  intellectual  movement  especially,  the  world  of 
culture,  partook  largely  in  fomenting  the  state  of 
exaltation  which  determined  the  war. 

During  the  progress  of  the  war,  which  was  long 
and  bitter,  Italy  passed  through  some  terrible  hours. 
Her  privations  during  the  war,  and  immediately 
after,  surpassed  all  expectations.  Italy  found  her- 
self face  to  face  with  an  enemy  who  enjoyed  a 
superior  geographical  situation,  a  numerical  super- 
iority, as  well  as  a  superiority  in  artillery.  After 
the  downfall  of  Eussia  she  had  to  support  a  terrible 


246  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

campaign.  Even  in  1917,  after  the  military  disaster, 
when  Allied  troops  came  to  Italy,  she  sent  abroad 
more  men  than  there  came  Allied  troops  to  her  aid. 
According  to  some  statistics  which  I  had  compiled, 
and  which  I  communicated  to  the  Allies,  Italy  was 
shown,  in  relation  to  her  vital  statistics,  to  have 
more  men  in  the  front  line  than  any  other  country. 
The  economic  sufferings  were,  and  are,  greater  than 
those  endured  by  others.  France  is  only  in  part 
a  Mediterranean  country,  while  Italy  is  entirely  so. 
During  the  war  the  action  of  the  submarines  ren- 
dered the  victualing  of  Italy  a  very  difficult  matter. 
Many  provinces,  for  months  on  end,  had  to  content 
themselves  with  the  most  wretched  kind  of  food. 
Taking  population  and  wealth  into  proportion,  if 
the  United  States  had  made  the  effort  of  Italy  they 
would  have  had  to  arm  sixteen  millions  of  men,  to 
have  lost  a  million  and  a  half  to  two  million  soldiers, 
and  to  have  spent  at  least  four  hundred  billions.  In 
order  to  work  up  popular  enthusiasm  (and  it  was 
perhaps  necessary),  the  importance  of  the  country's 
Adriatic  claims  was  exaggerated.  Thus  many 
Italians  believe  even  to-day  in  good  faith  that  the 
war  may  be  considered  as  lost  if  some  of  these  aspir- 
ations are  not  realized,  and  some  of  them  have  not 
been  and  can  not  be. 

But,  after  the  war,  Italy's  situation  suddenly 
changed.  The  war  had  aroused  in  the  minds  of  all 
Europeans  a  certain  sentiment  of  violence,  a  long- 
ing for  expansion  and  conquest.  The  proclamations 
of  the  Entente,  the  declarations  of  Wilson's  prin- 


THE  INDEMNITY  247 

ciples,  or  points,  became  so  contorted  that  no  trace 
of  them  could  be  found  in  the  treaties,  save  for  that 
ironic  covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations,  which  is 
always  repeated  on  the  front  page,  as  Dante  said  of 
the  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  at  the  expense  of  the  paper. 

For  Italy  a  very  curious  situation  came  about. 
France  had  but  one  enemy:  Germany.  She  united 
all  her  forces  against  this  enemy  in  a  coherent  and 
single  action  which  culminated  in  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles. France  had  but  one  idea:  to  make  the 
Entente  abandon  the  principles  it  had  proclaimed, 
and  try  to  suffocate  Germany,  dismember  her, 
humiliate  her  by  means  of  a  military  occupation,  by 
controlling  her  transports,  confiscating  all  her  avail- 
able wealth,  by  raising  to  the  dignity  of  elevated  and 
highly  civilized  states  inferior  populations  without 
national  dignity. 

Austria-Hungary  was  composed  of  eleven  peoples. 
It  was  split  up  into  a  series  of  states.  Austria  and 
Hungary  were  reduced  to  small  territories  and  shut 
up  in  narrow  confines.  All  the  other  countries  were 
given  to  Rumania,  to  Serbia,  to  Poland,  or  else  were 
formed  into  new  states,  such  as  Czecho-Slovakia. 
These  countries  were  considered  by  the  Entente  as 
allies,  and,  to  further  good  relations,  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  Entente  nations  protected  their  as- 
pirations even  against  the  wishes  of  Italy.  The 
Italians  had  found  themselves  in  their  difficult  the- 
ater of  war  against  Galatians,  Bosnians,  Croats, 
Transylvanians,  etc.  But  by  the  simple  fact  of  their 
having  changed  names,  and  having  called  themselves 


248  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Poles,  Jugo-Slavs,  Rumanians,  they  became  friends. 
In  order  to  favor  some  of  these  new  friends,  it  has 
happened  that  not  only  have  Italy's  sentiments  been 
offended,  but  even  justice  itself.  Montenegro  was 
always  mentioned  in  the  declarations  of  the  Entente. 
On  January  10,  1917,  Briand,  speaking  in  the  name 
of  all  the  Allies,  united  at  that  time  pour  la  defense 
el  la  liberie  des  peuples,  put  forward  as  a  fundamen- 
tal program  the  restoration  of  Belgium,  Serbia  and 
Montenegro :  Montenegro  was  in  this  on  an  equality 
with  Belgium.  Just  a  year  afterward,  January  8, 
1918,  Wilson,  when  formulating  his  fourteen  points, 
had  included  in  the  eleventh  proposition  the  duty  of 
evacuating  the  territories  of  Rumania,  Serbia  and 
Montenegro,  and  restoring  them.  The  exact  reason 
for  which  it  was  established  that  Montenegro  should 
be  absorbed  (even  without  plebiscite)  by  the  Jugo- 
slav State,  thus  offending  also  Italy's  sentiments, 
will  remain  one  of  the  most  melancholy  pages  of  the 
New  Holy  Alliance  that  the  Entente  has  become, 
along  with  that  poor  discredited  organization,  the 
League  of  Nations.  But  let  us  hope  this  latter  will 
find  a  means  of  renovating  itself. 

While  France  was  ruining  the  German  people's 
sources  of  life,  the  peoples  who  had  fought  most 
ferociously  against  Italy  became,  through  the  war, 
friendly  nations,  and  every  aspiration  of  Italy  ap- 
peared directed  to  lessen  the  prestige  of  the  new 
friends  and  allies. 

The  territories  annexed  to  Italy  have  a  small 
economic  value. 


THE  INDEMNITY  249 

For  more  than  thirty  years  Italy  had  sold  a  large 
part  of  her  richest  agricultural  produce  to  Germany 
and  had  imported  a  considerable  share  of  her  raw 
materials  from  Russia.  Since  the  war  she  has  found 
herself  in  a  state  of  regular  isolation.  A  large  part 
of  the  Italian  Press,  which  repeats  at  haphazard  the 
commonest  themes  of  the  French  Press  instead  of 
wishing  for  a  more  intense  revival  of  commercial  re- 
lations with  Germany,  frightens  the  ignorant  public 
with  stories  of  German  penetration;  and  the  very 
plutocracy  in  France  and  Italy — though  not  to  the 
same  extent  in  Italy — abandons  itself  to  the  identi- 
cal error.  So  to-day  we  find  spread  throughout  the 
peninsula  a  sense  of  lively  discontent  which  is  con- 
ducive to  a  wider  acceptance  of  the  exaggerations 
of  the  Socialists  and  the  Fascisti.  But  the  phenom- 
enon is  a  transitory  one. 

Italy  had  no  feeling  of  rancor  against  the  German 
people.  She  entered  the  war  against  German  im- 
perialism, and  can  not  now  follow  any  imperialistic 
policy.  Indeed,  in  the  face  of  the  imperialistic  com- 
petitions which  have  followed  the  war,  Italy  finds 
herself  in  a  state  of  profound  psychological 
uneasiness. 

France  worries  herself  about  one  people  only, 
since  as  a  matter  of  fact  she  has  only  one  warlike 
race  at  her  frontiers:  Germany.  Italy's  frontiers 
touch  France,  the  German  peoples,  the  Slav  races. 
It  is,  therefore,  her  interest  to  approve  a  democratic 
policy  which  allows  no  one  of  the  group  of  combat- 
ants to  take  up  a  position  of  superiority.    The  true 


250  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Italian  nationalist  policy  consists  in  being  against 
all  excessive  nationalisms,  and  nothing  is  more 
harmful  to  Italy's  policy  than  the  abandonment  of 
those  democratic  principles  in  the  name  of  which  she 
arose  and  by  which  she  lives.  If  the  policy  of  justice 
Ls  a  moral  duty  for  the  other  nations,  for  Italy  it  is  a 
necessity  of  existence.  The  Italian  people  have  a 
clear  vision  of  these  facts,  notwithstanding  a  certain 
section  of  her  Press  and  notwithstanding  the  exag- 
gerations of  certain  excited  parties  arisen  from  the 
ashes  of  the  war.  And  therefore  her  uneasiness  is 
great.  While  other  countries  have  an  economic 
crisis,  Italy  experiences,  in  addition,  a  mental  crisis, 
but  one  with  which  she  will  be  able  to  cope. 

France,  however,  is  in  a  much  more  difficult  situa- 
tion, and  her  policy  is  still  a  result  of  her  anxieties. 
All  the  violences  against  Germany  were,  until  the 
day  before  yesterday,  an  effect  of  hatred;  to-day 
they  are  derived  from  dread.  Moral  ideas  have  for 
nations  a  still  greater  value  than  wealth.  France 
had  until  the  other  day  the  prestige  of  her  demo- 
cratic institutions.  All  of  us  who  detested  the 
Hohenzollern  dynasty  and  the  insolent  fatuity  of 
William  II  loved  France,  heir  of  the  bourgeois  revo- 
lution and  champion  of  democracy.  So,  when  the 
war  came,  all  the  democracies  felt  a  lively  pang :  the 
crushing  of  France  meant  the  crushing  of  democracy 
and  liberty.  All  the  old  bonds  are  broken,  all  the  or- 
ganization which  Germany  had  abroad  is  smashed 
up,  and  France  has  been  saved,  not  by  arms  alone, 
but  by  the  powerful  desire  of  free  peoples. 


THE  INDEMNITY  251 

Yet  victory  has  taken  away  from  France  her 
greatest  prestige,  her  fascination  as  a  democratic 
country.  Now  all  the  democratic  races  of  the  world 
look  at  France  with  an  eye  of  distrust — some,  in- 
deed, with  rancor;  others  with  hate.  France  has 
comported  herself  much  more  crudely  toward  Ger- 
many than  a  victorious  Germany  would  have  com- 
ported herself  toward  France.  In  the  case  of 
Eussia,  she  has  followed  purely  plutocratic  tenden- 
cies. She  has  on  foot  the  largest  army  in  the  world 
in  front  of  a  helpless  Germany.  She  sends  colored 
troops  to  occupy  the  most  cultured  and  progressive 
cities  of  Germany,  abusing  the  fruits  of  victory.  She 
shows  no  respect  for  the  principle  of  nationality  or 
for  the  right  of  self-determination. 

Germany  is  in  a  helpless  and  broken  condition  to- 
day; she  will  not  make  war;  she  can  not.  But  if 
to-morrow  she  should  make  war,  how  many  peoples 
would  come  to  France 's  aid  ? 

The  policy  which  has  set  the  people  of  Europe 
against  one  another,  the  diffusion  of  nationalist  vio- 
lence, the  crude  persecutions  of  enemies,  excluded 
even  from  the  League  of  Nations,  have  created  an 
atmosphere  of  distrust  of  France.  Admirable  in  her 
political  sense,  France,  by  reason  of  an  error  of 
exaltation,  has  lost  almost  all  the  benefit  of  her  vic- 
torious action. 

A  situation  hedged  with  difficulties  has  been 
brought  about.  The  United  States  and  Great  Britain 
have  no  longer  any  treaty  of  alliance  of  guarantee 
with  France.    The  Anglo-Saxons,  conquerors  of  the 


252  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

war  and  the  peace,  have  drawn  themselves  aside. 
Italy  has  no  alliance  and  can  not  have  any.  No 
Italian  politician  could  pledge  his  country,  and  Par- 
liament only  desires  that  Italy  follow  a  democratic, 
peaceful  policy,  maintaining  herself  in  Europe  as  a 
force  for  equilibrium  and  life. 

France,  apart  from  her  military  alliance  with  Bel- 
gium, has  a  whole  system  of  alliances  based  largely 
on  the  newly  formed  states:  shifting  sands  like  Po- 
land, Russia's  and  Germany's  enemy,  whose  fate  no 
one  can  prophesy  when  Germany  is  reconstructed 
and  Russia  risen  again,  unless  she  finds  a  way  of 
remedying  her  present  mistakes,  which  are  much 
more  numerous  than  her  past  misfortunes.  Thus 
the  more  France  increases  her  army,  the  more  she 
corners  raw  materials  and  increases  her  measures 
against  Germany,  the  more  restless  she  becomes. 

She  has  seen  that  Germany,  mistress  on  land,  and 
to  a  large  extent  on  the  seas,  after  having  carried 
everywhere  her  victorious  flag,  after  having  organ- 
ized her  commerce  and,  by  means  of  her  bankers, 
merchants  and  capitalists,  made  vast  expansions  and 
placed  a  regular  network  of  relations  and  intrigue 
round  the  earth,  fell  when  she  attempted  her  act  of 
imperialistic  violence.  France,  when  in  difficulties, 
appealed  to  the  sentiment  of  the  nations  and  found 
arms  everywhere  to  help  her.  "What  then  is  clever 
organization  worth  to-day? 

The  fluctuations  of  fortune  in  Europe  show  for  all 
her  peoples  a  succession  of  victories  and  defeats. 
There  are  no  peoples  always  victorious.    After  hav- 


THE  INDEMNITY  253 

ing,  under  Napoleon  I,  humiliated  Germany,  France 
saw  the  end  of  her  imperialistic  dream,  and  later 
witnessed  the  ruin  of  Napoleon  III.  She  has  suf- 
fered two  great  defeats,  and  then,  when  she  stood 
diminished  in  stature  before  a  Germany  at  the  top 
of  her  fortune,  she,  together  with  the  Allies,  has 
had  a  victory  over  an  enemy  who  seemed  invincible. 

But  no  one  can  foresee  the  future.  To  have  con- 
veyed great  nuclei  of  German  populations  to  the  Slav 
States,  and  especially  to  Poland;  to  have  divided 
the  Magyars,  without  any  consideration  for  their 
fine  race,  among  the  Rumanians,  Czecho-Slovaks 
and  the  Jugo-Slavs ;  to  have  used  every  kind  of  vio- 
lence with  the  Bulgars;  to  have  offended  Turkey 
on  any  and  every  pretext ;  to  have  done  this  is  not  to 
have  guaranteed  the  victory  and  the  peace. 

Eussia  sooner  or  later  will  recover.  It  is  an  illu- 
sion to  suppose  that  Great  Britain,  France  and  Italy 
can  form  an  agreement  to  regulate  the  new  state  or 
new  states  that  will  arise  in  Eussia.  There  are  too 
many  tendencies  and  diverse  interests.  Germany, 
too,  will  reconstruct  herself  after  a  series  of  sorrows 
and  privations,  and  no  one  can  say  how  the  Germans 
will  behave.  Unless  a  policy  of  peace  and  social  ren- 
ovation be  shaped  and  followed,  our  sons  will  wit- 
ness scenes  much  more  terrible  than  those  which 
have  horrified  our  generation  and  upset  our  minds 
even  more  than  our  interests. 

Meanwhile,  in  spite  of  the  frightful  increase  of 
scrofula,  rickets  and  tuberculosis,  from  which  the 
conquered  peoples   are   principally   suffering,  the 


254  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

march  of  the  nations  will  proceed  according  to  the 
laws  which  have  hitherto  ruled  them  and  on  which 
our  limited  action  can  only  for  brief  periods  cause 
small  modifications  or  alterations. 

Forecasts  based  on  vital  statistics,  like  all  fore- 
casts of  social  events,  have  but  a  comparative  value. 
It  is  true  that  such  statistics  are  based  upon  mani- 
festations, but  it  is  also  true  that  economic  and 
social  factors  exercise  a  profound  influence  in  limit- 
ing their  regularity  and  can  disturb  them  very  con- 
siderably. It  is  better  therefore  not  to  make  long- 
term  prophecies. 

What  is  certain  is  that  the  French  population  has 
increased  almost  imperceptibly  while  the  population 
of  Germany  augmented  very  rapidly.  The  annual 
average  of  births  in  the  five  years  before  the  war, 
1908-13,  was  762,000  in  France  and  176,000  in  Bel- 
gium. In  Germany  it  was  1,916,000.  The  average 
of  deaths  was  729,000  in  France,  117,000  in  Belgium, 
and  1,073,000  in  Germany.  Thus,  per  thousand,  the 
excess  of  births  in  France  was  0.9,  in  Belgium  7.7, 
in  Germany  13.  The  war  has  terribly  aggravated 
the  situation  in  France,  whose  structure  is  far  from 
being  a  healthy  one.  From  statistics  published  giv- 
ing the  first  results  of  the  French  census  of  1921 — 
without  the  new  territory  of  Alsace-Lorraine 
— France,  in  the  interval  between  the  two  census 
periods,  has  decreased  by  2,102,864;  from  39,602,258 
to  37,499,394  (1921).  The  deaths  in  the  war  do  not 
represent  a  half  of  this  decrease,  when  are  deducted 
the  losses  among  the  colored  troops  and  those  from 


THE  INDEMNITY  255 

French  colonies  who  fought  for  France.  The  new 
territories  annexed  to  France  do  not  compensate  for 
the  war  mortality  and  the  decrease  in  births. 

We  may  presume  that  if  normal  conditions  of  life 
return,  the  population  of  Germany  and  German- 
Austria  will  be  more  than  one  hundred  millions,  that 
the  population  of  Belgium  altogether  little  less  than 
fifty  millions,  that  Italy  will  have  a  population  much 
greater  than  that  of  France,  of  at  least  forty-five 
million  inhabitants,  and  that  Great  Britain  will  have 
about  sixty  million  inhabitants.  In  the  case  of  the 
Germans  we  have  mentioned  one  hundred  million 
persons,  taking  into  consideration  Germany  and 
German-Austria.  But  the  Germans  of  Poland,  of 
Czecho-Slovakia  and  the  Baltic  States  will  amount 
to  at  least  twenty  millions  of  inhabitants.  No  one 
can  make  forecasts,  even  of  an  approximate  nature, 
on  Eussia,  whose  fecundity  is  always  the  highest  in 
Europe,  and  whose  losses  are  rapidly  replaced  by  a 
high  birth-rate  even  after  the  greatest  catastrophes. 
And  then  there  are  the  Germans  spread  about  the 
world,  great  aggregations  of  population  as  in  the 
United  States  of  America  and  in  a  lesser  degree  in 
Brazil.  Up  to  the  present  these  people  have  been 
silent,  not  only  because  they  were  surrounded  by 
hostile  populations,  but  because  the  accusation  of 
being  sons  of  the  Huns  weighed  down  upon  them 
more  than  any  danger  of  the  war.  But  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles,  and  more  still  the  manner  in  which  it 
has  been  applied,  is  to  dissipate,  and  soon  will  en- 
tirely dissipate,  the  atmosphere  of  antipathy  that 


256  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

existed  against  the  Germans.  In  Great  Britain  the 
situation  has  changed  profoundly  in  three  years. 
The  United  States  have  made  their  separate  peace 
and  want  no  responsibility.  In  Italy  there  scarcely 
exists  any  hatred  for  the  Germans,  and  apart  from 
certain  capitalists  who  paint  in  lurid  colors  the  dan- 
ger of  German  penetration  in  their  papers  because 
they  want  higher  tariff  protection  and  to  be  able 
to  speculate  on  government  orders,  there  is  no  one 
who  does  not  desire  peace  with  all  peoples.  The 
great  majority  of  the  Italian  people  only  desire  to 
reconstruct  the  economic  and  social  life  of  the 
nation. 

Certain  tendencies  in  France's  policy  depend  per- 
haps on  her  great  anxiety  for  the  future,  an  anxiety, 
in  fact,  not  unjustified  by  the  lessons  of  the  past. 
Germany,  notwithstanding  her  fallen  state,  her 
anguish  and  the  torment  she  has  to  go  through,  is 
so  strong  and  vital  that  everybody  is  certain  of  see- 
ing her  once  again  powerful,  indeed  more  powerful 
and  formidable  than  ever. 

Every  one  in  France  is  convinced  that  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles  has  lost  all  foundation  since  the  United 
States  of  America  abandoned  it,  and  since  Great 
Britain  and  Italy,  persuaded  of  the  impossibility  of 
putting  certain  clauses  into  effect,  have  shown  by 
their  attitude  that  they  are  not  disposed  to  entertain 
coercive  measures  which  are  as  useless  as  they  are 
damaging. 

In  France  the  very  authors  of  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles recognize  that  it  is  weakened  by  a  series  of 


THE  INDEMNITY  257 

successive  attenuations.  Tardieu  has  asserted  that 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles  tends  to  be  abandoned  on  all 
sides:  "Cette  faillite  a  des  causes  allemandes,  des 
causes  allies,  des  causes  frangaises."  The  United 
States  has  asked  itself,  after  the  trouble  that  has 
followed  the  treaty,  if  wisdom  did  not  lie  in  the  old 
time  isolation,  in  Washington's  farewell  address,  in 
the  Monroe  Doctrine:  Keep  off.  But  in  America 
they  have  not  understood,  says  Tardieu,  that  to  as- 
sist Europe  the  same  solidarity  was  necessary  that 
existed  during  the  war. 

Great  Britain,  according  to  Tardieu,  tends  now 
also  to  stand  aside.  The  English  are  inclined  to  say, 
" Let's  not  talk  about  it," — "N'en  parlous  plus." 
No  Frenchman  will  accept  with  calm  the  manner  in 
which  Lloyd  George  has  conceived  the  execution  of 
the  peace  treaty.  The  campaign  for  the  revision  of 
the  treaties  that  sprang  up  in  lower  spheres  and 
from  popular  associations  and  workmen's  groups, 
has  surprised  and  saddened  the  French  spirit.  In 
the  new  developments  Tardieu  wonders  whether  it  is 
another  England  or  another  Lloyd  George — tl :  etait 
ce  une  autre  Angleterre,  etait  ce  un  autre  Lloyd 
George?"  Even  in  France  herself  Tardieu  recog- 
nizes sadly  the  language  has  altered:  (iles  gouverne- 
ments  frangais,  qui  se  sont  succede  au  pouvoir  depuis 
le  10  Janvier,  1920,"  that  is,  after  the  fall  of  Cle- 
menceau,  accused  in  turn  by  Poincare  of  being  weak 
and  feeble  in  asserting  his  demands,  u '  ont  compromis 
les  droits  que  leur  predecesseur  avait  fait  recon- 
naitre  a  la  France." 


258  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Taking  into  consideration  Germany's  financial 
downfall,  which  threatens  to  upset  not  only  all  the 
indemnity  schemes  but  the  entire  economy  of  Con- 
tinental Europe,  the  state  of  mind  which  is  prevalent 
is  not  much  different  from  that  which  Tardieu 
indicates. 

It  is  already  more  than  a  year  ago  since  I  left  the 
direction  of  the  Italian  Government,  and  the  French 
Press  no  longer  accused  me  of  being  in  perfect 
agreement  with  Lloyd  George,  yet  Poincare  wrote 
on  August  1,  1920: 

The  other  day  Mr.  Asquith  stated,  before  the  House  of 
Commons,  "  Whatever  kind  of  language  one  employs,  the 
Conference  of  Spa  has  actually  been  a  conference  for  the 
revision  of  the  conditions  of  the  Treaty."  "Stop!"  said 
Lloyd  George.  ' '  That  is  a  very  grave  statement  considering 
the  effect  which  it  may  produce  in  France.  I  can  not 
allow  it  to  pass  without  contradicting  it."  A  contradic- 
tion made  formally,  merely  as  a  courtesy  to  us,  which, 
unfortunately,  does  not  change  at  all  the  substance  of 
things.  Each  time  the  Supreme  Council  met,  they  left 
on  the  table  of  the  Kesolutions  some  scattered  bits  of  the 
Treaty. 

No  kind  of  high-handedness,  no  combined  effort, 
will  ever  be  able  to  keep  afloat  absurdities  like  the 
dream  of  the  vast  indemnity,  the  Polish  program, 
the  hope  of  annexing  the  Saar,  etc.  As  things  go 
there  is  almost  more  danger  for  the  victors  than  for 
the  vanquished.  He  who  has  lost  all  has  nothing  to 
lose.    It  is  rather  the  victorious  nations  who  risk  all 


THE  INDEMNITY  259 

in  this  disorganized  Europe  of  ours.  The  conquer- 
ors arm  themselves  in  the  ratio  by  which  the  van- 
quished disarm,  and  the  worse  the  situation  of  our 
old  enemies  becomes,  so  much  the  worse  become  the 
exchanges  and  the  credits  of  the  victorious  Conti- 
nental countries. 

Yet,  in  some  of  the  exaggerated  ideas  of  France 
and  other  countries  of  the  Entente,  there  is  not  only 
the  rancor  and  anxiety  for  the  future,  but  a  senti- 
ment of  well-founded  suspicion.  After  the  war  the 
European  States  belonging  to  the  Entente  have  been 
embarrassed  not  only  on  account  of  the  enormous 
internal  debts,  but  also  for  the  huge  debts  contracted 
abroad. 

If  Germany  had  not  had  to  pay  any  indemnity  and 
had  not  lost  her  colonies  and  merchant  marine  we 
should  have  been  confronted  with  the  absurd  para- 
dox that  the  victorious  nations  would  have  issued 
from  the  war  worn  out,  with  their  territories  de- 
stroyed, and  with  a  huge  foreign  debt;  Germany 
would  have  had  her  territory  quite  intact,  her  indus- 
tries ready  to  begin  work  again,  herself  anxious  to 
start  again  her  productive  force,  and  in  addition 
with  no  foreign  debt,  consequently  ample  credit 
abroad.  In  the  mad  struggle  to  break  up  Germany 
there  was  involved  not  only  hatred,  but  also  a  quite 
reasonable  anxiety  which,  after  all,  must  be  taken 
into  consideration. 

Even  to-day,  three  years  after  the  war,  Great 
Britain  has  not  paid  her  debt  to  America,  and 
France  and  Italy  have  not  paid  their  debts  to  Amer- 


260  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

ica  and  Great  Britain.  Groat  Britain  could  pay  with 
a  great  effort;  France  and  Italy  can  not  pay 
anyhow. 

According  to  the  accounts  of  the  American  Treas- 
ury the  Allies '  war  debt  is  9,565  millions  of  dollars ; 
4/277  millions  owing  from  Great  Britain,  2,977  mil- 
lions from  France,  1,648  millions  from  Italy,  349 
millions  from  Belgium,  187  millions  from  Russia,  61 
millions  from  Czecho-Slovakia,  26  millions  from  Ser- 
bia, 25  millions  from  Rumania,  and  15  millions  from 
Greece.  Up  to  last  July,  Great  Britain  had  paid 
back  110  millions  of  dollars.  Since  the  spring  of 
1919  the  payment  of  the  interest  on  the  amounts  due 
to  the  American  Treasury  has  been  suspended  by 
some  European  States.  Between  October  and  No- 
vember, 1919,  the  amount  of  the  capitalizing  and 
unpaid  interests  of  the  European  States  came  to  236 
million  dollars.  The  figure  has  considerably  in- 
creased since  then. 

According  to  the  Statist  (August  6,  1921),  the 
Allies'  debt  to  the  United  States  on  March  31,  1921, 
amounted  to  10,959  million  dollars,  including  the  in- 
terests, in  which  sum  Great  Britain  was  interested 
to  the  amount  of  4,775  million  dollars  and  France  for 
3,351  million  dollars.  But  the  Statist's  figures,  in 
variance  to  the  official  figures,  include  other  debts 
than  strictly  war  debts. 

The  debts  of  the  various  Allied  countries  to  Great 
Britain  on  March  31,  1921,  according  to  a  schedule 
annexed  to  the  financial  statement  for  1921-22,  pub- 
lished by  the  British  Treasury,  came  to  £1,776,000,- 


THE  INDEMNITY  261 

000,  distributed  as  follows:  France  557  millions, 
Italy  476  millions,  Russia  561  millions,  Belgium  94 
millions,  Serbia  22  millions,  Portugal,  Eumania, 
Greece  and  other  Allies  66  millions.  This  sum  rep- 
resents war  debts.  But  to  it  must  be  added  the 
£9,900,000  given  by  Great  Britain  for  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  Belgium  and  the  loans  granted  by  her  for 
relief  to  an  amount  of  £16,000,000.  So,  altogether, 
Great  Britain's  credit  to  the  Allies  on  March  31, 
1921,  was  £1,803,800,000,  and  has  since  been  in- 
creased by  the  interests.  Great  Britain  had  also  at 
the  same  date  a  credit  of  £144,000,000  to  her 
dominions. 

France  has  credit  of  little  less  than  nine  billion 
francs,  of  which  875  millions  is  from  Italy,  four  bil- 
lions from  Russia,  2,250  millions  from  Belgium,  500 
millions  from  the  Jugo-Slavs,  and  1,250  millions 
from  other  Allies.  Italy  has  only  small  credits  of 
no  account. 

Now  this  situation,  by  reason  of  which  the  victo- 
rious countries  of  Europe  are  heavy  debtors  (France 
has  a  foreign  debt  of  nearly  30  billions,  and  Italy  a 
debt  of  more  than  20  billions)  in  comparison  with 
Germany,  which  came  out  of  the  war  without  any 
debt,  has  created  a  certain  amount  of  bad  feeling, 
Germany  would  have  got  on  her  feet  again  quicker 
than  the  victors  if  she  had  no  indemnity  to  pay  and 
had  no  foreign  debts  to  settle. 

France's  anxieties  in  this  matter  are  perfectly 
legitimate  and  must  be  most  seriously  considered 
without,  however,  producing  the  enormities  of  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles* 


262  Till]  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Assuming  this,  the  situation  may  be  stated  in  the 
following  terms: 

1.  All  the  illusions  as  to  the  capacity  of  Germany 
being  able  to  pay  have  fallen  to  pieces,  and  the  in- 
demnities, after  the  absurd  demands  which  tended 
to  consider  as  inadequate  the  figure  of  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  billions  and  an  annual  payment  of 
from  ten  to  fifteen  billions  have  become  an  anxious 
unknown  quantity,  as  troublesome  to  the  victors  as 
to  the  vanquished.  The  German  currency  has  lost 
all  control  under  the  force  of  internal  needs,  and 
Germany  is  threatened  with  failure.  The  other 
debtors — Austria-Hungary,  Turkey,  Bulgaria — have 
need  of  succor,  and  can  pay  nothing.  Austria  has 
need  of  the  most  indispensable  objects  of  existence, 
and  everything  is  lacking. 

2.  The  indemnity  which  Germany  can  pay  an- 
nually in  her  present  condition  can  not,  calculating 
goods  and  cash  payments  altogether,  represent  more 
than  two  or  three  billions  at  the  most. 

3.  The  victorious  countries,  such  as  France,  have 
won  immense  territories  and  great  benefits,  yet 
they  have  not  been  able  to  pay  the  war  debts  con- 
tracted abroad,  and  not  even  the  interests.  France 
and  Italy,  being  countries  of  good  faith,  have  demon- 
strated that,  if  they  can  not  pay,  it  is  absurd  to 
demand  the  payment  of  much  higher  sums  from 
countries  like  Germany,  wThich  has  lost  almost  all  her 
best  resources :  merchant  fleet,  colonies  and  foreign 
organization,  etc. 

4.  The  danger  exists  that  with  the  aggravation 


THE  INDEMNITY  263 

of  the  situation  in  the  vanquished  countries  and  the 
weakening  of  the  economic  structure  of  Europe,  the 
vanquished  countries  will  drag  the  victor  down  with 
them  to  ruin,  while  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  stand- 
ing apart  from  Continental  Europe,  will  detach 
themselves  more  and  more  from  its  policy. 

5.  The  situation  which  has  come  about  is  a  rea- 
son for  every  one  to  be  anxious,  and  threatens  both 
the  downfall  of  the  vanquished  and  the  almost  inevit- 
able ruin  of  the  victors,  unless  a  way  is  found  of 
reconstructing  the  moral  unity  of  Europe  and  the 
solidarity  of  economic  life. 


VI 

EUROPE  's  POST-WAR  RECONSTRUCTION  AND  PEACE  POLICY 

No  right-thinking  person  has  nowadays  any  doubt 
as  to  the  profound  injustice  of  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles and  of  all  the  treaties  which  are  derived  from 
it.  But  this  fact  is  of  small  importance,  inasmuch  as 
it  is  not  justice  or  injustice  that  regulates  the  rela- 
tions between  nations,  but  their  interests  and  senti- 
ments. In  the  past  we  have  seen  Christian  peoples, 
transplanted  to  America,  maintain  the  necessity  of 
slavery,  and  we  have  seen,  and  continue  to  see  every 
day,  methods  of  reasoning  which,  when  used  by  the 
defeated  enemy  were  declared  to  be  fallacious  and 
wrong,  become  in  turn,  when  varied  only  in  form,  the 
ideas  and  the  customary  life  of  the  conquerors  in  the 
war — ideas  which  then  assume  the  quality  of  liberal 
expressions  of  democracy. 

If  appeals  to  the  noblest  human  sentiments  are  not 
made  in  vain  (and  no  effort  of  goodness  or  generos- 
ity is  ever  sterile),  the  conviction  which  is  gradually 
forming  itself,  even  in  the  least  receptive  minds,  that 
the  treaties  of  peace  are  inapplicable,  as  harmful  to 
the  conquerors  as  to  the  conquered,  gains  in  force. 
For  the  treaties  are  at  one  and  the  same  time  a 

264 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         265 

menace  for  the  conquerors  and  a  paralysis  of  all 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  conquered,  since  once  the 
economic  unity  of  Continental  Europe  is  broken  the 
resultant  depression  becomes  inevitable. 

If  many  errors  have  been  committed,  many  errors 
were  inevitable.  What  we  must  try  to  do  now  is  to 
limit  the  consequences  of  these  mistakes  in  a  changed 
spirit.  To  reconstruct  where  we  see  only  ruins  is 
the  most  evident  necessity.  "We  must  also  try  to  sow 
among  the  nations  which  have  won  the  war  together 
and  suffered  together  the  least  amount  of  distrust 
possible.  As  it  is,  the  United  States,  Great  Britain, 
France,  Italy,  Japan,  all  go  their  own  way.  France 
has  obtained  her  maximum  of  concessions,  including 
those  of  least  use  to  her,  but  never  before  has  the 
world  seen  her  so  spiritually  isolated  as  after  the 
treaties  of  Paris. 

What  is  most  urgently  required  at  the  moment  is 
to  change  the  prevalent  war  mentality  which  still 
infects  us  and  overcomes  all  generous  sentiments, 
all  hopes  of  unity.  The  statement  that  war  makes 
men  better  or  worse  is,  perhaps,  an  exaggerated  one* 
War,  which  creates  a  state  of  exaltation,  hyper- 
trophies all  the  qualities,  all  the  tendencies,  be  they 
for  good  or  for  evil.  Ascetic  souls,  spirits  naturally 
noble,  being  disposed  toward  sacrifice,  develop  a 
state  of  exaltation  and  true  fervor.  How  many  ex- 
amples of  nobility,  of  abnegation,  of  voluntary 
martyrdom  has  not  the  war  given  us?  But  in  per- 
sons disposed  to  evil  actions,  in  rude  and  violent 
spirits  (and  these  are  always  in  the  majority),  the 


266  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

spirit  of  violence  increases.  This  spirit,  which 
among  the  intellectuals  takes  the  form  of  arrogance 
and  concupiscence,  and  in  politics  expresses  itself  in 
a  policy  of  conquest,  assumes  in  the  crowd  the  most 
violent  forms  of  class  war,  continuous  assaults  upon 
the  power  of  the  state,  and  an  unbalanced  desire  to 
gain  as  much  as  possible  with  the  least  possible 
work. 

Before  the  war  the  number  of  men  ready  to  take 
the  law  into  their  own  hands  w^as  relatively  small; 
now  there  are  many  such  individuals.  The  various 
nations,  even  those  most  advanced,  can  not  boast  a 
moral  progress  comparable  with  their  intellectual 
development.  The  explosion  of  sentiments  of  vio- 
lence has  created  in  the  period  after  the  war  in  most 
countries  an  atmosphere  which  one  may  call  un- 
breathable.  Peoples  accustomed  to  be  dominated 
and  to  serve  have  come  to  believe  that,  having  be- 
come dominators  in  their  turn,  they  have  the  right 
to  use  every  kind  of  violence  against  their  overlords 
of  yesterday.  Are  not  the  injustices  of  the  Poles 
against  the  Germans,  and  those  of  the  Rumanians 
against  the  Magyars,  a  proof  of  this  state  of  mind! 
Even  in  the  most  civilized  countries  many  rules  of 
order  and  discipline  have  gone  by  the  board. 

After  all  the  great  wars  a  condition  of  torpor,  of 
unwillingness  to  work,  together  with  a  certain  rude- 
ness in  social  relations,  has  always  been  noticed. 

The  War  of  1870  was  a  little  war  in  comparison 
with  the  cataclysm  let  loose  by  the  European  War. 
Yet  then  the  conquered  country  had  its  attempt  at 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         267 

Bolshevism,  which  in  those  days  was  called  the  Com- 
mune, and  the  fall  of  its  political  regime.  In  the 
conquering  country  we  witnessed,  together  with  the 
rapid  development  of  industrial  groups,  a  quick 
growth  in  Socialism  and  the  constitution  of  great 
parties  like  the  Catholic  Center.  Mutatis  mutandis, 
the  same  situation  has  shown  itself  after  the 
European  "War. 

What  is  most  urgently  necessary,  therefore,  is  to 
effect  a  return  to  peace  sentiments,  and  in  the  mani- 
festations of  government  to  abandon  those  attitudes 
which  in  the  peaces  of  Paris  had  their  roots  in  hate. 

I  have  tried,  as  premier  of  Italy,  as  writer,  and  as 
politician,  to  regulate  my  actions  by  this  principle. 
In  the  first  months  of  1920  I  gave  instructions  to 
Italy's  ambassador  in  Vienna,  the  Marquis  della 
Torretta,  to  arrange  a  meeting  between  himself  and 
Chancellor  Renner,  head  of  the  Government  of 
Vienna.  So  the  chief  of  the  conquered  country 
came,  together  with  his  ministers,  to  greet  the  head 
of  the  conquering  country,  and  there  was  no  word 
that  could  record  in  any  way  the  past  hatred  and  the 
ancient  rancor.  All  the  conversation  was  of  the 
necessity  for  reconstruction  and  for  the  development 
of  fresh  currents  of  life  and  commercial  activity. 
The  government  of  Italy  helped  the  government  of 
Austria  in  so  far  as  was  possible.  And  in  so  acting, 
I  felt  I  was  doing  better  work  for  the  greatness  of 
my  country  than  I  could  possibly  have  done  by  any 
kind  of  stolid  persecution.  I  felt  that  over  and  be- 
yond our  competition  there  existed  the  human  sor- 


268  THE  WBECK  OF  EUROPE 

row  of  nations  for  whom  we  must  avoid  fresh  shed- 
ding  of  blood  and  fresh  wars.  Had  I  not  left  the 
government,  it  was  my  intention  not  only  to  continue 
in  this  path,  but  also  to  intensify  my  efforts  in  this 
direction. 

The  banal  idea  that  there  exist  in  Europe  two 
groups  of  nations,  one  of  which  stands  for  violence 
and  barbarism — the  Germans,  the  Magyars  and  the 
Bulgarians — while  the  other  group  of  Anglo-Saxons 
and  Latins  represents  civilization,  must  not  continue 
to  be  repeated,  because  not  only  is  it  an  outrage  on 
truth  but  an  outrage  on  honesty.  Many  of  the 
noblest  and  greatest  works  of  the  human  spirit  we 
owe  to  Germany,  and  without  her  Europe  can  not  be 
prosperous  or  tranquil. 

Always  to  repeat  that  the  Germans  are  not 
adapted  to  a  democratic  regime  is  neither  just  nor 
true.  Nor  is  it  true  that  Germany  is  an  essentially 
warlike  country,  and  therefore  different  from  all 
other  lands.  In  the  last  three  centuries  France  and 
England  have  fought  many  more  wars  than  Ger- 
many. One  must  read  the  books  of  the  Napoleonic 
period  to  see  with  what  disdain  pacificist  Germany 
is  referred  to — that  country  of  peasants,  waiters  and 
philosophers.  It  is  sufficient  to  read  the  works  of 
German  writers,  including  Treitschke  himself,  to 
perceive  for  what  a  long  period  of  time  the  German 
lands,  anxious  for  peace,  have  considered  France  as 
the  country  always  eager  for  wTar  and  conquest. 

Not  only  am  I  of  the  opinion  that  Germany  is  a 
land  suited  for  democratic  institutions,  but  I  be- 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         269 

lieve  that  since  the  fall  of  the  empire  democratic 
principles  have  a  wider  prevalence  there  than  in  any 
other  country  of  Europe.  The  resistance  offered  to 
the  peace  of  Versailles — that  is,  to  disorganization — 
may  be  claimed  as  a  merit  for  the  democratic 
parties,  which,  if  they  are  loyally  assisted  by  the 
States  of  the  Entente,  can  not  only  develop  them- 
selves but  establish  a  great  and  noble  democracy. 

Germany  has  accustomed  us  in  history  to  the 
most  remarkable  surprises.  A  century  and  a  half 
ago  she  was  considered  as  a  pacificist  nation  with- 
out national  spirit.  She  has  since  then  become  a 
warlike  country  with  the  most  pronounced  national 
spirit.  Early  in  the  seventeenth  century  there  were 
in  Germany  more  than  one  hundred  territories  and 
independent  states.  There  was  no  true  national 
consciousness,  and  not  even  the  violence  of  the  Napo- 
leonic wars,  a  century  after,  sufficed  to  awaken  it. 
"What  was  required  was  a  regular  effort  of  thought, 
a  sustained  program  of  action  on  the  part  of  men 
like  Wolff,  Fichte  and  Hegel  to  awaken  a  national 
consciousness.  Fifty  years  earlier  no  one  would 
have  believed  in  the  possibility  of  a  Germany  united 
and  compact  in  her  national  sentiment.  Germany 
passed  from  the  widest  decentralization  to  the 
greatest  concentration  and  the  intensest  national 
life.  Germany  will  also  be  a  democratic  country  if 
the  violence  of  her  ancient  enemies  does  not  drive 
her  into  a  state  of  exaltation  which  will  tend  to  ren- 
der minds  and  spirits  favorable  to  a  return  to  the 
old  regime. 


270  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

To  arrive  at  peace  we  must  first  of  all  desire 
peace.  "We  must  no  longer  carry  on  conversations 
by  means  of  military  missions,  but  by  means  of  am- 
bassadors and  diplomatic  representatives. 

1. — The  League  of  Nations  and  the  Participation 
of  the  Vanquished 

A  great  step  toward  peace  may  be  made  by  ad- 
mitting at  once  all  ex-enemy  states  into  the  League 
of  Nations.  Among  the  states  of  European  civiliza- 
tion at  least  350  millions  of  persons  are  unrepre- 
sented in  the  League  of  Nations :  the  United  States, 
who  has  not  wished  to  adhere  to  it  after  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles  sanctioned  violence;  Russia,  who  has 
not  been  able  to  join  owing  to  her  difficult  position. 
Austria  and  Bulgaria  have  been  permitted  to  join 
the  League  with  a  vote  in  the  Assembly.  Hungary 
had  made  the  request  to  the  Assembly  in  1921  but 
immediately  thereafter  withdrew  it.  Germany  has 
not  asked  to  join  the  League  of  Nations  since  she 
does  not  wish  to  be  humiliated  by  being  regarded 
with  suspicion  as  a  small  people,  and  the  League 
furthermore,  after  the  decision  about  Upper  Silesia, 
has  lost  some  of  the  little  prestige  which  still  re- 
mained to  it.  The  League  of  Nations  was  a  mag- 
nificent conception  in  which  I  have  had  faith,  and 
which  I  have  regarded  with  sympathy.  But  a  for- 
midable mistake  has  deprived  it  of  all  prestige. 
Clauses  5  and  10  of  its  originating  constitution  and 
the  exclusion  of  the  defeated  have  given  it  at  once 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         271 

the  character  of  a  kind  of  Holy  Alliance  of  the  con- 
querors established  to  regulate  the  incredible  rela- 
tions which  the  treaties  have  created  between 
conquerors  and  conquered.  Wilson  had  already 
committed  the  mistake  of  founding  the  League  of 
Nations  without  first  defining  the  nations  and  leav- 
ing to  chance  the  resources  of  the  beaten  peoples  and 
their  populations.  The  day,  however,  on  which  all 
the  peoples  are  represented  in  the  League,  the 
United  States,  without  approving  the  treaties  of 
Versailles,  St.  Germain  or  Trianon,  etc.,  will  feel  the 
need  of  abandoning  their  isolation,  which  is  harm- 
ful for  them  and  places  them  in  a  position  of  infer- 
iority. And  on  the  day  when  all  the  peoples  of  the 
world  are  represented,  and  accept  reciprocal  pledges 
of  international  solidarity,  a  great  step  will  have 
been  taken. 

As  things  stand,  the  organism  of  the  Reparations 
Commission,  established  by  Schedule  2  of  Part  VIII 
of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  is  an  absurd  union  of 
the  conquerors  (no  longer  allies,  but  reunited  solely 
in  a  kind  of  bankruptcy  procedure),  who  interpret 
the  treaty  in  their  own  fashion,  and  can  even  modify 
the  laws  and  regulations  in  the  conquered  countries. 
The  existence  of  such  an  institution  among  civilized 
peoples  ought  to  be  an  impossibility.  Its  powers 
must  be  transferred  to  the  League  of  Nations  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  provide  guarantees  for  the  victors, 
but  guarantees  also  for  the  conquered.  The  sup- 
pression of  the  Reparations  Commission  becomes, 
therefore,  a  fundamental  necessity. 


272  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

2. — The  Revision  of  the  Treaties 

When  the  public,  and  especially  in  the  United 
Stales  and  Great  Britain,  become  convinced  that  the 
spirit  of  peace  can  only  prevail  by  means  of  an  hon- 
est revision  of  the  treaties  the  difficulties  will  be 
easily  eliminated.  But  one  can  not  merely  speak  of 
a  simple  revision ;  it  would  be  a  cure  worse  than  the 
evil.  During  the  tempest  one  can  not  abandon  the 
storm-beaten  ship  and  cross  over  to  a  safer  vessel. 
It  is  necessary  to  return  into  harbor  and  make  the 
transhipment  where  calm,  or  relative  calm  at  any 
rate,  reigns. 

Inasmuch  as  Europe  is  out  of  equilibrium,  a  set- 
tlement, even  of  a  bad  kind,  can  not  be  arrived  at 
offhand.  To  cast  down  the  present  political  scaf- 
folding without  having  built  anything  would  be  an 
error.  Perhaps  here  the  method  that  will  prove 
most  efficacious  is  to  entrust  the  League  of  Nations 
with  the  task  of  arriving  at  a  revision.  When  the 
League  of  Nations  is  charged  with  this  work  the  va- 
rious governments  will  send  their  best  politicians, 
and  the  discussion  will  be  able  to  assume  a  realizable 
character. 

According  to  its  constitution,  the  League  of  Na- 
tions may,  in  case  of  war  or  the  menace  of  war 
(Clause  11),  convoke  its  members,  and  take  all  the 
measures  required  to  safeguard  the  peace  of  the  na- 
tions. All  the  adhering  states  have  recognized  their 
obligation  to  submit  all  controversies  to  arbitration, 
and  that  in  any  case  they  have  no  right  to  resort  to 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         273 

war  before  the  expiration  of  a  term  of  three  months 
after  the  verdict  of  the  arbiters  or  the  report  of  the 
Council  (Clause  12).  Any  member  of  the  League  of 
Nations  resorting  to  war  contrary  to  the  undertak- 
ings of  the  treaty  which  constitutes  the  League  is, 
ipso  facto,  considered  as  if  he  had  committed  an  act 
of  war  against  all  the  other  members  of  the  League 
(Clause  16). 

But  more  important  still  is  the  fact  that  the  As- 
sembly of  the  League  of  Nations  may  invite  its 
members  to  proceed  to  a  fresh  examination  of  treat- 
ies that  become  inapplicable,  as  well  as  of  interna- 
tional situations  whose  prolongation  might  imperil 
the  peace  of  the  world  (Clause  19). 

We  may  therefore  revise  the  present  treaties 
without  violence  and  without  destroying  them. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  what  must  be  modified, 
inasmuch  as  all  the  matter  of  this  book  supplies  the 
evidence  and  the  proof.  What  is  certain  is  that  in 
Europe  and  America,  except  for  an  intransigent 
movement  running  strong  in  France,  every  one  is 
convinced  of  the  necessity  of  revision. 

It  will  be  well  that  this  revision  should  take  place 
through  the  operations  of  the  League  of  Nations 
after  the  representatives  of  all  the  states,  conquer- 
ors, conquered  and  neutrals,  have  come  to  form  part 
of  it. 

But  in  the  constitution  of  the  League  of  Nations 
there  are  two  clauses  which  form  its  fundamental 
weakness,  sections  desired  by  France,  whose  gravity 
escaped  Wilson. 


274  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

Clause  5  declares  that,  save  and  excepting  con- 
trary dispositions,  the  decisions  of  the  Assembly  or 
of  the  Council  are  to  be  by  the  unanimous  consent 
of  the  members  represented  at  the  meetings.  It  is 
difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  absurd.  If  the 
modification  of  a  territorial  situation  is  being  dis- 
cussed, all  the  nations  must  agree  as  to  the  solution, 
including  the  interested  nation.  The  League  of  Na- 
tions is  convinced  that  the  Danzig  corridor  is  an 
absurdity,  but  if  France  is  not  of  the  same  opinion 
no  modification  can  be  made.  Without  a  change  of 
this  clause,  every  honest  attempt  at  revision  must 
necessarily  break  down. 

Clause  10,  by  which  the  members  of  the  League 
of  Nations  pledge  themselves  to  respect  and  pre- 
serve from  external  aggression  the  territorial  integ- 
rity and  the  existing  politicial  independence  of  all 
the  members  of  the  League,  must  also  be  altered. 
This  clause,  which  is  profoundly  immoral,  conse- 
crates and  perpetuates  the  mistakes  and  faults  of 
the  treaties.  No  honest  country  can  guarantee  the 
territorial  integrity  of  the  states  now  existing  after 
the  monstrous  parceling  out  of  entire  groups  of 
Germans  and  Magyars  to  other  nations,  arranged 
without  scruples  and  without  intelligence.  No  one 
can  honestly  guarantee  the  territorial  integrity  of 
Poland  as  it  stands  at  present.  If  a  new-risen  Rus- 
sia, a  renewed  Germany,  and  an  unextinguished 
Austria  desire  in  the  future  a  revision  of  the  treaties 
they  will  be  making  a  most  reasonable  demand  to 
which  no  civilized  country  may  make  objection.    It 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         275 

is  indeed  Clauses  5  and  10  which  have  deprived  the 
constitution  of  the  League  of  Nations  of  all  moral 
credit,  which  have  transformed  it  into  an  instrument 
of  oppression  for  the  victors,  which  have  caused  the 
just  and  profound  disapproval  of  the  most  enlight- 
ened men  of  the  American  Senate.  A  League  of  Na- 
tions with  Clauses  5  and  10  and  the  prolonged  ex- 
clusion of  the  vanquished  can  not  but  accentuate  the 
criticisms  made  by  all  democracies  and  the  aversion 
of  the  masses. 

But  the  League  of  Nations  can  be  altered  and  can 
become  indeed  a  great  force  for  reconstruction  if 
the  problem  of  its  functioning  be  clearly  confronted 
and  promptly  resolved. 

The  League  of  Nations  can  become  a  great  guar- 
antee for  peace  on  three  conditions: 

(a)  That  it  include  really  and  in  the  shortest 
space  of  time  possible  all  the  peoples,  conquerors, 
conquered  and  neutrals. 

(b)  That  Clauses  5  and  10  be  modified,  and  that 
after  their  modification  a  revision  of  the  treaties  be 
undertaken. 

(c)  That  the  Reparations  Commission  be  abol- 
ished and  its  powers  be  conferred  upon  the  League 
of  Nations  itself. 

As  it  exists  at  present  the  League  of  Nations  has 
neither  prestige  nor  dignity;  it  is  an  expression  of 
the  violence  of  the  conquering  group  of  nations.  But 
reconstituted  and  renovated  it  may  become  the 
greatest  of  peace  factors  in  the  relations  between  the 
peoples. 


276  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

3. — The  Safety  of  France  and  the  Military 
Guarantees 

In  the  state  of  mind  which  prevails  at  present 
France  has  just  cause  for  being  uneasy  about  the 
future.  Since  the  conclusion  of  the  war  the  United 
States  of  America  have  withdrawn.  They  concern 
themselves  with  Europe  no  more,  or  only  in  a  very 
limited  form  and  with  distrust.  The  Monroe  Doc- 
trine has  come  into  its  own  again.  Great  Britain 
watches  the  decadence  of  the  European  Continent, 
but,  girt  by  the  sea,  has  nothing  to  fear.  She  is  a 
country  of  Europe,  but  she  does  not  live  the  life  of 
Europe;  she  stands  apart  from  it.  Italy,  when  she 
has  overcome  the  difficulties  of  her  economic  situa- 
tion, can  be  certain  of  her  future.  The  very  fact  that 
she  stands  in  direct  opposition  to  no  state,  that  she 
may  have  competition  with  various  peoples  but  not 
long-nurtured  hatreds,  gives  Italy  a  relative  secu- 
rity. But  France,  who  has  been  in  less  than  forty- 
four  years  twice  at  war  with  Germany,  has  little 
security  for  her  future.  Germany  and  the  Germanic 
races  increase  rapidly  in  number.  France  does  not 
increase.  France,  notwithstanding  the  new  territo- 
ries, after  her  war  losses,  has  probably  less  inhabi- 
tants than  in  1914.  In  her  almost  tormented  anxiety 
to  destroy  Germany  we  see  her  dread  for  the  future 
— more  indeed  than  mere  hatred.  To  occupy  with 
numerous  troops  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  and  the 
bridgeheads  is  an  act  of  vengeance ;  but  in  the  ven- 
geance there  is  also  anxiety.  There  are  many  in 
France  who  think  that  neither  now  nor  after  fifteen 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         277 

years  must  the  territory  of  the  vanquished  be  aban- 
doned. And  so  France  maintains  in  effective  force 
too  large  an  army  and  nourishes  too  great  a  rancor. 
And  for  this  reason  she  helps  the  Poles  in  their  un- 
justifiable attempt  in  Upper  Silesia,  will  not  allow 
the  Germans  of  Austria  to  live,  and  seeks  to  provoke 
and  facilitate  all  movements  and  political  actions 
which  can  tend  toward  the  dismemberment  of  Ger- 
many. 

The  British  and  the  Italian  view-points  are  es- 
sentially different.  France,  which  knows  it  can  no 
longer  count  on  the  cooperation  of  Great  Britain, 
of  the  United  States,  or  of  Italy,  keeps  on  foot  her 
large  army,  has  allied  herself  with  Belgium  and  Po- 
land, and  tries  to  strangle  Germany  in  a  ring  of 
iron.  The  attempt  is  a  vain  one  and  destined  to  fail 
within  a  few  years,  inasmuch  as  France  's  allies  have 
no  capacity  for  resistance.  Yet,  all  the  same,  her 
attempt  is  derived  from  a  feeling  that  is  not  only 
justifiable  but  just. 

France  had  obtained  at  Paris,  apart  from  the 
occupation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  and  all  the 
military  controls,  two  guaranteeing  treaties  from 
the  United  States  and  from  Great  Britain:  in  case 
of  unprovoked  aggression  on  the  part  of  Germany, 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  pledged  them- 
selves to  defend  France.  The  British  Parliament, 
as  we  have  seen,  approved  the  treaty  provisionally 
on  the  similar  approbation  of  the  United  States.  But 
as  the  latter  has  not  approved  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles, and  has  not  even  discussed  the  guarantee 
s  treaty,  France  has  now  no  guarantee  treaty. 


278  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

If  we  are  anxious  to  realize  a  peace  politic  two 
things  are  necessary: 

1.  That  France  has  security,  and  that  for  twenty 
years  at  least  Great  Britain  and  Italy  pledge  them- 
selves to  defend  her  in  case  of  aggression. 

2.  That  the  measures  for  the  disarmament  of  the 
conquered  states  be  maintained,  maybe  with  some 
tempering  of  their  conditions,  and  that  their  execu- 
tion and  control  be  entrusted  with  the  amplest  pow- 
ers to  the  League  of  Nations. 

No  one  can  think  it  unjust  that  the  parties  who 
provoked  the  war  or  those  who  have,  if  not  the  en- 
tire, at  least  the  greatest  share  of  responsibility, 
should  be  rendered  for  a  certain  time  harmless.  The 
fall  of  the  military  caste  in  Germany  and  the  forma- 
tion of  a  democratic  society  will  derive  much  help 
from  the  abolition,  for  a  not  too  brief  period  of  time, 
of  the  permanent  army,  and  this  will  render  pos- 
sible, at  no  distant  date,  an  effective  reduction  of 
the  armaments  in  the  victorious  countries. 

Great  Britain  has  the  moral  duty  to  proffer  a 
guarantee  already  spontaneously  given.  Italy  also 
must  give  such  a  guarantee  if  she  wishes  truly  to 
contribute  toward  the  peace  of  Europe. 

As  long  as  Germany  has  no  fleet,  and  can  not  put 
together  an  artillery  and  an  aviation  corps,  she  can 
not  represent  a  threat. 

Great  Britain  and  Italy  can,  however,  only  give 
their  guarantees  on  the  condition  that  they  guaran- 
tee a  proper  state  of  things  and  not  a  continued  con- 
dition of  violence.    The  withdrawal  of  all  the  troops 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         279 

from  the  Rhine  ought  to  coincide  with  a  clear  defini- 
tion concerning  the  fate  of  the  Germans  of  Austria 
and  the  Germans  detached  from  Germany  without 
motive.  Such  a  retirement  must  coincide  with  the 
definition  of  the  territory  of  the  Saar,  and  the  as- 
signing, pure  and  simple,  of  Upper  Silesia  to  Ger- 
many and  the  end  of  all  the  insupportable  controls 
and  the  indemnity  regulations. 

Although  I  am  myself  opposed  to  any  pledge  bind- 
ing Italy  for  too  long  a  period,  I  am  of  opinion  that 
it  is  perfectly  right  that  Great  Britain  and  Italy 
should  make  this  sacrifice  for  the  peace  of  Europe. 

But  no  guarantee  is  possible,  either  for  Great 
Britain  or  Italy,  until  the  most  essential  problems  be 
resolved  in  the  justest  manner  by  means  of  straight- 
forward and  explicit  understandings. 

Italy's  leaning  toward  British  policy  on  the  Con- 
tinent of  Europe  depends  on  the  fact  that  Great 
Britain  has  never  wished  or  tolerated  that  any  Con- 
tinental state  should  have  a  hegemony  over  others. 
And,  therefore,  she  has  found  herself  at  differ- 
ent epochs  ranged  against  France,  Germany  and 
Russia. 

England  is  in  the  Mediterranean  solely  to  secure 
her  passage  through  it,  not  to  dominate  it.  She  con- 
tinues to  follow  the  great  policy  by  which  she  has 
transformed  her  colonies  into  dominions,  and,  in 
spite  of  errors,  she  has  always  shown  the  greatest 
respect  for  the  liberty  of  other  peoples. 

But  Europe  will  not  have  peace  until  the  three 
progressive  countries  of  the  Continent,  Germany, 


280  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

France  and  Italy,  find  a  way  of  agreement  which 
can  reunite  all  their  energies  in  one  common  effort. 

Russia  has  conceived  the  idea  of  having  the  hege- 
mony of  Europe ;  Germany  has  indeed  had  the  illu- 
sion of  such  a  hegemony.  Now  this  illusion  pene- 
trates certain  French  elements.  Can  a  people  of 
forty  million  inhabitants,  who  are  not  increasing, 
who  already  find  difficulties  in  dominating  and  con- 
trolling their  immense  colonies,  aspire  to  hegemonic 
action,  even  taking  count  of  their  great  political 
prestige?  Can  France  lastingly  dominate  and  men- 
ace a  country  like  Germany,  which  at  no  distant  date 
will  have  a  population  double  that  of  France  ! 

The  future  of  European  civilization  requires  that 
Germany,  France  and  Italy,  after  so  much  disaster, 
find    a  common  road  to  travel. 

The  first  step  to  be  taken  is  to  give  security  of 
existence  and  of  reconstruction  to  Germany ;  the  sec- 
ond, to  guarantee  France  from  the  perils  of  a  not 
distant  future ;  the  third,  to  find  at  all  costs  a  means 
of  accord  between  Germany,  France  and  Italy. 

But  only  vast  popular  movements  and  great  cur- 
rents of  thought  and  of  life  can  work  effectively  in 
those  cases  where  the  labors  of  politicians  have  re- 
vealed themselves  as  characterized  by  uncertainty 
and  as  being  too  traditional.  Europe  is  still  under 
the  dominion  of  old  spirits  which  often  enough  dwell 
in  young  bodies  and,  therefore,  unite  old  errors  with 
violence.  A  great  movement  can  only  come  from 
the  intellectuals  of  the  countries  most  menaced  and 
from  fresh  popular  energies. 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         281 

4. — Regulating  Inter-Allied  Debts,  Germany's 
Indemnity  and  That  oe  the  Defeated  Countries 

These  two  problems  are  closely  connected. 

The  victorious  countries  demand  an  indemnity 
from  the  conquered  countries  which,  except  Ger- 
many, who  has  a  great  productive  force  even  in  her 
hour  of  difficulties,  are  in  extreme  depression  and 
misery. 

Great  Britain  is  in  debt  to  the  United  States,  and 
France,  Italy  and  minor  nations  are  in  their  turn 
heavy  debtors  to  the  Americans  and  to  Great 
Britain. 

The  experience  of  the  last  three  years  has  shown 
that,  even  with  the  best  will,  none  of  the  countries 
owing  money  to  the  Entente  has  been  able  to  pay  its 
debts  or  even  the  interest.  With  an  effort  Great 
Britain  could  pay;  France  and  Italy  will  never  be 
able  to,  and  have,  moreover,  exchanges  which  consti- 
tute a  real  menace  for  the  future  of  each. 

The  fact  that  France  and  Italy,  although  they 
came  out  of  the  war  victoriously,  have  not  been  able 
to  pay  their  debts  or  even  the  interest  on  them  is  the 
proof  that  Germany,  whose  best  resources  have  been 
taken  away  from  her,  can  only  pay  an  indemnity 
very  different  from  the  fantastic  figures  put  for- 
ward at  the  time  of  the  Conference  of  Paris,  when 
even  important  political  men  spoke  of  monstrous 
and  ridiculous  indemnities. 

The  problem  of  the  Inter- Allied  debts,  as  well  as 
that  of  the  indemnity,  will  be  solved  by  a  certain 


282  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

sacrifice  on  the  part  of  all  who  participated  in  the 
Avar. 

The  credits  of  the  United  States  amount  to  almost 
48  billions  of  lire  or  francs  at  par,  and  the  credits 
of  Great  Britain  to  44  billions.  Great  Britain  owes 
about  21  billions  to  the  United  States  and  is  in  turn 
creditor  for  some  44  billions.  She  has  a  bad  debt 
owing  from  Russia  for  more  than  14  billions,  but  13 
billions  are  owing  from  France,  about  12  billions 
from  Italy,  and  almost  2y2  billions  from  Belgium. 
Great  Britain,  in  other  words,  could  well  pay  her 
debt  to  the  United  States,  ceding  the  greater  part 
of  her  credits  toward  France  and  Italy. 

But  the  truth  is  that,  while  on  the  subject  of  the 
German  indemnities,  stolid  illusions  continue  to  be 
propagated  (perhaps  now  with  greater  discretion)', 
neither  France  nor  Italy  is  in  a  position  to  pay  its 
debts. 

The  most  honest  solution,  which,  intelligently 
enough,  J.  M.  Keynes  has  seen  from  the  first,  is  that 
each  of  the  Inter- Allied  countries  should  renounce  its' 
state  credits  toward  countries  that  were  allies  or 
associates  during  the  war.  The  United  States  of 
America  are  creditors  only;  Great  Britain  has  lent 
double  what  she  has  borrowed.  France  has  received 
on  loan  three  times  as  much  as  she  has  lent  to  others. 

The  credits  of  France  are  for  almost  two-thirds 
credits  on  which  she  can  not  draw;  the  credits  of 
Great  Britain,  since  14  billions  are  in  Russia,  may, 
to  the  extent  of  a  third,  be  written  off  as  bad  debts. 
The  true  and  honest  solution  is  therefore  the  entire 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         283 

cancellation  of  the  Inter- Allied  debts,  that  is  to  say, 
of  the  debts  between  the  Allied  and  Associated  Gov- 
ernments contracted  during  the  war. 

France  and  Italy  would  be  the  chief  gainers  by 
this  provision.  Great  Britain  would  scarcely  either 
benefit  or  lose,  or,  rather,  the  benefit  accruing  to  her 
would  be  less  in  so  much  as  her  chief  credits  are  to 
Russia. 

The  United  States  would  doubtless  have  to  bear 
the  largest  burden.  But  when  one  thinks  of  the 
small  sacrifice  which  the  United  States  has  made  in 
comparison  with  the  efforts  of  France  and  Italy 
(and  Italy  was  not  obliged  to  enter  the  war),  the 
new  sacrifice  demanded  does  not  seem  excessive. 

During  the  war  the  United  States  of  America,  who 
for  three  years  furnished  food,  provisions  and  arms 
to  the  countries  of  the  Entente,  absorbed  the  greater 
part  of  their  available  resources.  Not  only  are  the 
states  of  Europe  debtors,  but  so  are  especially  the 
private  citizens  who  have  contracted  debts  during 
or  after  the  war.  Great  Britain  during  the  war  had 
to  sell  at  least  twenty-five  billions  (lire)  of  her  for- 
eign securities.  The  United  States  of  America,  on 
the  contrary,  have  immensely  increased  their  re- 
serves. 

But  this  very  increase  is  harmful  to  them,  inas- 
much as  the  capacity  for  exchange  of  the  states  of 
Europe  has  been  much  reduced.  The  United  States 
now  risk  seeing  still  further  reduced,  if  not  de- 
stroyed, this  purchasing  capacity  of  their  best 
clients ;  and  this  finally  constitutes  for  America  in- 


284  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

finitely  greater  damage  than  the  renouncing  of  all 
their  credits. 

To  reconstruct  Germany,  to  intensify  exchange  of 
goods  with  the  old  countries  of  Austria-Hungary 
and  Russia,  to  settle  the  situation  of  the  exchange  of 
goods  with  Italy  and  the  Balkan  countries  is  much 
more  important  for  the  United  States  and  the  pros- 
perity of  its  people  than  to  demand  payment  or  not 
demand  payment  of  those  debts  incurred  in  the 
common  cause. 

I  will  speak  of  the  absurd  situation  which  has 
come  about.  Czecho-Slovakia  and  Poland  unwill- 
ingly indeed  fought  against  the  Entente,  which  has 
raised  them  to  free  and  autonomous  states ;  and  not 
only  have  they  no  debt  to  pay,  being  now  in  the 
position  of  conquerors,  or  at  least  allies  of  the  con- 
querors, but  they  have,  in  fact,  scarcely  any  foreign 
debts. 

The  existence  of  enormous  war  debts  is,  then, 
everywhere  a  menace  to  financial  stability.  No  one 
is  anxious  to  repudiate  his  debts  in  order  not  to  suf- 
fer in  loss  of  dignity,  but  almost  all  know  that  they 
can  not  pay.  The  end  of  the  war,  as  Keynes  has 
justly  written,  has  created  a  situation  in  which  all 
owe  immense  sums  of  money  to  one  another.  Ger- 
many owes  an  enormous  sum  to  the  Allies;  the 
Allies  owe  an  enormous  sum  to  England;  England 
owes  an  enormous  sum  to  the  United  States.  The 
holders  of  loans  in  every  country  are  creditors  for 
vast  sums  upon  the  state,  and  the  state,  in  its  turn, 
is  creditor  for  enormous  sums  upon  the  taxpayers. 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         285 

The  whole  situation  is  highly  artificial  and  irritat- 
ing. "We  shall  be  unable  to  move  unless  we  succeed 
in  freeing  ourselves  from  this  chain  of  paper  which 
keeps  the  world  from  breathing  freely. 

The  work  of  reconstruction  can  begin  by  an- 
nulling the  Inter- Allied  debts. 

If  it  is  not  thought  desirable  to  proceed  at  once 
to  annulment,  there  remains  only  the  solution  of  in- 
cluding them  in  the  indemnity  which  Germany  must 
pay  in  the  measure  of  twenty  per  cent.,  allocating 
a  proportioned  quota  to  each  country  which  has  made 
loans  to  Allied  and  Associated  Governments  on  ac- 
count of  the  war.  In  round  figures  the  Inter- Allied 
loans  come  to  one  hundred  billions.  They  can  be 
reduced  to  twenty,  and  then  each  creditor  can  re- 
nounce his  respective  credit  upon  allies  or  associates 
and  participate  proportionately  in  the  new  credit 
toward  Germany.  Such  a  credit,  bearing  no  inter- 
est, could  only  be  demanded  after  the  payment  of  all 
the  other  indemnities,  and  would  be  considered  in 
the  complete  total  of  the  indemnities. 

All  the  illusions  concerning  the  indemnities  are 
now  fated  to  disappear.  They  have  already  van- 
ished for  the  other  countries;  they  are  about  to 
vanish  in  the  case  of  Germany. 

Nevertheless  it  is  right  that  Germany  should  pay 
an  indemnity.  Bismarck  after  the  War  of  1870, 
asked  five  billions,  no  small  sum  from  the  con- 
quered. The  recent  war  was  far  greater,  and  this  is 
the  reason  for  asking  more ;  but  the  conquered  have 
come  forth  much  more  impoverished  and  this  is  the 


286  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

reason  for  asking  proportionately  less.  Yet,  if  the 
conquerors  can  not  meet  their  foreign  debts,  how  can 
the  vanquished  clear  the  vast  indemnity  asked! 
Each  passing  day  demonstrates  more  clearly  the 
misunderstanding  of  the  indemnity.  The  non-ex- 
perts have  not  learned  financial  technique,  but 
common  sense  tells  them  that  the  golden  nimbus 
which  has  been  trailed  before  their  eyes  is  only  a 
thick  cloud  of  smoke  that  is  slowly  dissipating. 

I  have  already  said  that  the  real  damages  to  re- 
pair do  not  exceed  forty  billions  of  gold  marks  and 
that  all  the  other  figures  are  pure  exaggerations. 

If  it  be  agreed  that  Germany  accept  twenty  per 
cent,  of  the  Inter- Allied  debt,  the  indemnity  may  be 
raised  to  sixty  billions  of  francs  at  par,  to  be  paid 
in  gold  marks. 

But  we  must  calculate  for  Germany's  benefit  all 
that  she  has  already  given  in  immediate  marketable 
wealth.  Apart  from  her  colonies,  Germany  has 
given  up  all  her  merchant  marine  fleet,  her  sub- 
marine cables,  much  railway  material  and  war  ma- 
terial, government  property  in  ceded  territory 
without  any  diminution  of  the  amount  of  public 
debts,  etc.  Without  taking  account,  then,  of  the 
colonies  and  her  magnificent  commercial  organiza- 
tion abroad,  Germany  has  parted  with  at  least 
twenty  billions.  If  we  were  to  calculate  what  Ger- 
many has  ceded  with  the  same  criteria  with  which 
the  conquering  countries  have  calculated  their 
losses,  we  should  arrive  at  figures  much  surpassing 
these.    We  may  agree  in  taxing  Germany  with  an 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         287 

indemnity  equivalent  in  gold  marks  to  sixty  billions 
of  francs  at  par — an  indemnity  to  be  paid  in  the 
following  manner : 

(a)  Twenty  billions  of  francs  to  be  considered 
as  already  paid  in  consideration  of  all  that  Germany 
has  ceded  in  consequence  of  the  treaties. 

(b)  Twenty  billions  from  the  indemnity  which 
Germany  must  pay  to  her  conquerors,  especially  in 
coal  and  other  materials,  according  to  the  propor- 
tions already  established. 

(c)  Twenty  billions — after  the  payment  of  the 
debts  in  the  second  category  to  be  taken  over  by 
Germany — as  part  of  the  reimbursement  for  coun- 
tries which  have  made  credits  to  the  belligerents  of 
the  Entente:  that  is,  the  United  States,  Great 
Britain  and  France,  in  proportion  to  the  sums  lent. 

In  what  material  can  Germany  pay  twenty  bil- 
lions in  a  few  years?  Especially  in  coal  and  in  ma- 
terial for  repairing  the  devastated  territories  of 
France.  Germany  must  pledge  herself  for  ten  years 
to  consign  to  France  a  quantity  of  coal  at  least  equal 
in  bulk  to  the  difference  between  the  annual  produc- 
tion before  the  war  in  the  mines  of  the  north  and  in 
the  Pas  de  Calais  and  the  production  of  the  mines  in 
the  same  area  during  the  next  ten  years.  She  must 
also  furnish  Italy — who,  after  the  heavy  losses  sus- 
tained, has  not  the  possibility  of  effecting  exchanges 
— a  quantity  of  coal  that  will  represent  three- 
quarters  of  the  figures  settled  upon  in  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles.  "We  can  compel  Germany  to  give  to  the 
Allies  for  ten  years,  in  extinction  of  their  credits,  at 


288  THE  WRECK  OF  EUEOPE 

least  five  hundred  millions  a  year  in  gold,  with  priv- 
ileges on  the  customs  receipts. 

This  systematization,  which  can  only  be  imposed 
by  the  free  agreement  of  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain,  would  have  the  effect  of  creating  ex- 
cellent relations.  The  United  States,  canceling 
their,  in  great  part,  impossible  debt,  would  derive 
the  advantage  of  developing  their  trade  and  indus- 
try, and  thus  be  able  to  guarantee  credits  for  private 
individuals  in  Europe.  It  would  also  be  of  advan- 
tage to  Great  Britain,  who  would  lose  nothing. 
Great  Britain  has  about  an  equal  number  of  debits 
and  credits,  with  this  difference,  that  the  debits  are 
secured,  while  the  credits  are,  in  part,  unsecured. 
France's  credits  are  proportionately  the  worst  and 
her  debits  largest,  almost  twenty-seven  billions. 
France,  liberated  from  her  debt,  and  in  a  position 
to  calculate  on  a  coal  situation  comparable  with  that 
of  before  the  war  and  with  her  new  territories, 
would  be  in  a  position  to  reestablish  herself.  The 
cancellation  of  twenty-seven  billions  of  debt,  a  pro- 
portionate share  in  twenty  billions,  together  with  all 
that  she  has  had,  represents  on  the  wThole  a  sum  that 
perhaps  exceeds  fifty  billions.  Italy  would  have  the 
advantage  of  possessing  for  ten  years  the  minimum 
of  coal  necessary  to  her  existence,  and  would  be  lib- 
erated from  her  foreign  debt,  which  amounts  to 
much  more  than  she  can  possibly  hope  for  from  the 
indemnity. 

Such  an  arrangement,  or  one  like  it,  is  the  only 
way  calculated  to  allow  Europe  to  set  out  again  on 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         289 

the  path  of  civilization  and  to  reestablish  slowly  that 
economic  equilibrium  which  the  war  has  destroyed 
with  enormous  damage  for  the  conquerors  and  the 
certain  ruin  of  the  vanquished. 

But,  before  speaking  of  an  indemnity,  the  Repa- 
rations Commission  must  be  abolished  and  its  func- 
tions handed  over  to  the  League  of  Nations,  while 
all  the  useless  controls  and  other  hateful  vexations 
must  be  ended. 

While  the  Allied  troops'  occupation  of  the  Rhine 
costs  Germany  1,600,000  gold  marks  a  year,  it  is 
foolish  to  speak  of  reconstruction  or  indemnity. 
Either  all  occupation  must  cease  or  the  expenses 
ought  not  to  exceed,  according  to  the  foregoing 
agreements,  a  maximum  of  eighty  millions  at  par,  or 
even  less. 

We  shall,  however,  never  arrive  at  such  an  ar- 
rangement until  the  Continental  countries  become 
convinced  of  two  things:  first,  that  the  United 
States  will  grant  no  credits  under  any  form;  sec- 
ondly, that  Germany,  under  the  present  system,  will 
be  unable  to  pay  anything  and  will  collapse,  drag- 
ging down  to  ruin  her  conquerors. 

Among  many  uncertainties  these  two  convictions 
become  ever  clearer. 

If  in  all  countries  the  spirit  of  insubordination 
among  the  working  classes  is  increasing,  the  state 
of  mind  of  the  German  operatives  is  quite  remark- 
able. The  workmen  almost  everywhere,  in  face  of 
the  enormous  fortunes  which  the  war  has  created 
and  by  reason  of  the  spirit  of  violence  working  in 


290  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

them,  have  worked  with  bad  spirit  after  the  war  be- 
cause they  have  thought  that  a  portion  of  their  labor 
has  gone  to  form  the  profits  of  the  industrials.  It 
is  useless  to  say  that  we  are  dealing  here  with  an 
absurd  and  dangerous  conception,  because  the  profit 
of  the  capitalist  is  a  necessary  element  of  produc- 
tion, and  because  production  along  communist  lines, 
wherever  it  has  been  attempted,  has  brought  ruin 
and  misery.  But  it  is  useless  to  deny  that  such  a 
situation  exists,  together  with  the  state  of  mind 
which  it  implies.  We  can  well  imagine,  then,  the 
conditions  in  which  Germany  and  the  vanquished 
countries  find  themselves.  The  workmen,  who  in 
France,  England  and  Italy  exhibit  in  various  de- 
gree and  measure  a  state  of  intractability,  in  Ger- 
many have  to  face  a  situation  still  graver.  When 
they  work  they  know  that  a  portion  of  their  labor 
is  destined  to  go  to  the  victors,  another  part  to  the 
capitalist,  and  finally  there  will  remain  something 
for  them.  Add  to  this  that  in  all  the  beaten  countries 
hunger  is  wide-spread,  with  a  consequent  diminution 
of  energy  and  work. 

No  reasonable  person  can  explain  how  humanity 
can  continue  to  believe  in  the  perpetuation  of  a  sim- 
ilar state  of  things  for  another  thirty  or  forty  years 
and  even  longer. 

In  speaking  of  the  indemnity'  which  Germany  can 
pay,  it  is  necessary  to  consider  this  special  state  of 
mind  of  the  operatives  and  other  categories  of 
producers. 

Henceforth   Europe   must   count   upon   its    own 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         291 

strength.  Even  if  there  shall  be  total  or  part  can- 
cellation of  Inter- Allied  debts,  there  will  be  a  lack  of 
other  income,  since  Europe  has  been  transformed 
through  the  war  from  a  creditor  to  a  debtor 
continent. 

But  the  mere  announcement  of  the  settling  of  the 
indemnity,  of  the  immediate  admission  of  the  van- 
quished nations  into  the  League  of  Nations,  of  the 
settling  the  question  of  the  occupation  of  the  Rhine, 
and  of  the  firm  intention  to  modify  the  constitution 
of  the  League  of  Nations,  according  it  the  powers 
now  held  by  the  Reparations  Commission,  will  im- 
prove at  once  the  market  and  signalize  a  definite 
and  assured  revival. 

The  United  States  made  a  great  financial  effort 
to  assist  their  associates,  and  in  their  own  interests, 
as  well  as  for  those  of  Europe,  they  would  have  done 
badly  to  have  continued  with  such  assistance.  When 
the  means  provided  by  America  come  to  be  employed 
to  keep  going  the  anarchy  of  Central  Europe, 
Rumania's  disorder,  Greece's  adventures  and  Po- 
land's acts  of  violence,  together  with  Denikin's  and 
Wrangel's  restoration  attempts,  it  is  better  that  all 
help  should  cease.  In  fact,  Europe  has  begun  to 
reason  a  little  better  than  her  governments  since  the 
financial  difficulties  have  increased. 

The  fall  of  the  mark  and  Germany's  profound 
economic  depression  have  already  destroyed  a  great 
part  of  the  illusions  on  the  subject  of  the  indemnity, 
and  the  figures  with  which  for  three  years  the  public 
Eas  been  humbugged  no  longer  convince  any  one. 


292  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

5. — Forming  New  Connections  with  Russia 

Among  the  States  of  the  Entente  there  is  always 
a  fundamental  discord  on  the  subject  of  Russia. 
Great  Britain  recognized  at  once  that  if  it  were  im- 
possible to  acknowledge  the  Soviet  Government  it 
was  a  mistake  to  encourage  attempts  at  restoration. 
After  the  first  moments  of  uncertainty  Great  Britain 
has  insisted  on  temperate  measures,  and  notwith- 
standing that  during  the  war  she  made  the  largest 
loans  to  the  Russian  Government  (more  than  four- 
teen billions  of  francs  at  par,  while  France  only  lent 
about  four  billions),  she  has  never  put  forward  the 
idea  that,  as  a  condition  precedent  to  the  recognition 
of  the  Soviet  Government,  a  guarantee  of  the  repay- 
ment of  the  debt  was  necessary.  Only  France  has 
had  this  mistaken  idea,  which  she  has  forced  to  the 
point  of  asking  for  the  sequestration  of  all  gold  sent 
abroad  by  the  Soviet  Government  for  the  purchase 
of  goods. 

Wilson  had  already  stated  in  his  fourteen  points 
what  the  attitude  of  the  Entente  toward  Russia 
ought  to  be,  but  the  attitudes  actually  assumed  have 
been  of  quite  a  different  order. 

The  barrier  that  Poland  wants  to  construct  be- 
tween Germany  and  Russia  is  an  absurdity  which 
must  be  swept  away  at  once.  Having  taken  away 
Germany's  colonies  and  her  capacities  for  expansion 
abroad,  we  must  now  direct  her  toward  Russia  where 
alone  she  can  find  the  outlet  necessary  for  her  enor- 
mous population  and  the  debt  she  has  to  carry.    The 


EUROPE'S  RECONSTRUCTION         293 

blockade  of  Russia,  the  barbed  wire  placed  round 
Russia,  have  damaged  Europe  severely.  This  block- 
ade has  resolved  itself  into  a  blockade  against  the 
Allies.  Before  the  present  state  of  economic  ruin 
Russia  was  the  great  reservoir  of  raw  materials ;  she 
was  the  unexplored  treasure  toward  which  one  went 
with  the  confidence  of  finding  everything.  Now, 
owing  to  her  effort,  she  has  fallen ;  but  how  large  a 
part  of  her  fall  is  due  as  much  to  the  Entente  as  to 
her  action  during  the  war  and  since  1  For  some  time 
now  even  the  most  hidebound  intelligences  have  rec- 
ognized the  fact  that  it  is  useless  to  talk  of  entering 
into  trade  relations  with  Russia  without  the  cooper- 
ation of  Germany,  the  obvious  ally  in  the  vast  task 
of  renovation.  Similarly,  it  is  useless  to  talk  of 
reattempting  military  maneuvers.  "While  Germany 
remains  disassociated  from  the  work  of  reconstruc- 
tion and  feels  herself  menaced  by  a  Poland  that  is 
anarchical  and  disorderly  and  acts  as  an  agent  of  the 
Entente,  while  Germany  has  no  security  for  her 
future  and  must  work  with  doubt  and  with  rancor, 
all  attempts  to  reconstruct  Russia  will  be  vain.  The 
simple  and  fundamental  truth  is  just  this :  One  can 
only  get  to  Moscow  by  passing  through  Berlin. 

If  we  do  not  wish  conquerors  and  conquered  to 
fall  one  after  the  other,  and  a  common  fate  to  reunite 
those  who  for  too  long  have  hated  one  another  and 
continue  to  hate  one  another,  a  solemn  word  of  peace 
must  be  pronounced. 

Austria,  Germany,  Italy,  France  are  not  diverse 


294  THE  WRECK  OF  EUROPE 

phenomena;  they  are  different  phases  of  the  same 
phenomenon.  All  Europe  will  go  to  pieces  if  new 
conditions  of  life  are  not  found,  and  the  economic 
equilibrium  profoundly  shaken  by  the  war  reestab- 
lished. 

I  have  sought  in  this  book  to  point  out  in  all  sin- 
cerity the  things  that  are  in  store  for  Europe ;  what 
perils  menace  her  and  in  what  way  her  regeneration 
lies.  In  my  political  career  I  have  experienced 
much  bitterness;  but  the  campaign  waged  against 
me  has  not  disturbed  me  at  all.  I  know  that  wisdom 
and  life  lie  only  in  one  course,  and  I  have  no  need 
to  modify  anything  that  I  have  done,  either  in  my 
propaganda  or  in  my  attempt  at  human  regenera- 
tion, convinced  as  I  am  that  I  am  serving  both  the 
cause  of  my  country  and  the  cause  of  civilization. 
Blame  and  praise  do  not  disturb  me,  and  the  agita- 
tions promoted  in  the  heart  of  my  country  will  not 
modify  in  any  way  my  conviction.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  will  only  reinforce  my  will  to  follow 
along  the  same  line. 

Truth,  be  it  only  slowly,  makes  its  way.  Though 
now  the  clouds  are  blackest,  they  will  shortly  dis- 
appear. The  crisis  which  menaces  and  disturbs 
Europe  so  profoundly  has  created  alarm  even  in  the 
less  thoughtful  spirits ;  Europe  is  still  in  the  phase 
of  doubt,  but  after  the  cries  of  hate  and  fury,  doubt 
signifies  a  great  advance.  From  doubt  the  truth 
may  come  forth  at  last. 

THE  END 


INDEX 

Adrianople  passes  to  the  Greeks,  177. 

Adriatic  program,  Italy's,  245. 

Albania,  Italy's  expedition  to,  151. 

Alexander  the  Great,  28,  176. 

Allenstein,  a  plebiscite  for,  124. 

Allies,  war  debt  of:  to  France,  261;  to  Great  Britain,  260;  to  United 

States,  264;  effect  on  Allies  if  canceled,  288;  Keynes's  solution, 

282. 
Alsace-Lorraine:  annexation  of,  41,  122;  restitution  of,  56. 
America,  see  United  States. 

Apponyi,  Count,  and  Treaty  of  Trianon,  168-170. 
Arabia,  Turkey's  losses  in,  173. 
Armament,  reduction  of,  55. 
Armenia:    and    Conference    of    San    Eemo,    180-181;    and    Entente, 

180-182. 
Armistice:    terms   of,   43-49;    three   words   change   tenor   of,    77-82; 

196,  197,  201,  202. 
Army  of  Occupation,  116-119,  276. 

Asia  Minor:  and  Entente,  57;   Turkey's  losses  in,  173. 
Australasia,  British  possessions  in,  12. 
Australia,  a  part  of  British  Dominion,  12. 
Austria:  army,  133;   civilizing  influence  of,  7;   loses  access  to  sea, 

136;  post-war  plight,  136;  171. 
Austria-Hungary,  army  of  1913,  133;   post-war  finances,  192,   195; 

States  of,  247;  and  Versailles  Treaty,  56. 
Azerbajan,  181. 

Balkan  Wars,  84. 

Beethoven,  4. 

Bela  Kun,  170. 

Belgium :  acquisition  of  German  territory,  41,  53 ;  army,  138 ;  in- 
demnity, 186,  210;  pre-war  birth  and  death  rate,  254;  post-war 
finances,  192;  violation  of,  29,  230;  war  debt,  260;  wealth  of, 
220. 

Bernhardi,  General  von,  mad  writings  of,  86. 

Bismarck,  4,  29,  89. 

Bolshevism,  definition  of,  86. 

Bolshevik  Government,  148  et  seq. 

Briand,  M.:  and  Montenegro,  248;  statements  to  United  States,  25, 

295 


296  INDEX 

Bridgeheads,  German,  occupation  of,  117  ct  scq. 
British  colonies  before  the  •war,  12. 
Budapest,  conditions  in,   135;    mortality,  166. 
Bulgaria:  army,  133;  post-war  conditions,  171,  172. 
Biilow,  Von,  29. 

Cesar,  Julius,  28. 

Canada,  part  of  British  Dominion,  12. 

Cilieia,  173. 

Civilization,  evolution  of,  64. 

Clemenceau,  M. :  19,  65;  fall  of,  257;  Germany  and  Bolshevism,  102; 
hatred  of  Germany,  107;  an  individualist,  110;  indemnity, 
207,  208;  informs  Lloyd  George  of  Poincare's  letter,  121;  mili- 
tary guarantees,  119;  note  to  Lloyd  George,  108;  occupation  of 
Germany,  120;  Peace  Conference:  influence,  110-112,  peace  with 
Germany,  103-104,  reparation,  76-77;  reply  to  Lloyd  George's 
memorandum  of  1919,  101-105;  territorial  partition  of  Germany, 
102. 

Coal  fields  of  Germany,  54,  185. 

Colonial  rights  and  the  Versailles  Treaty,  55. 

Colonies:   British,  12;   German  pre-war,  53;   Germany  loses  hers,  55. 

Commission  for  Danube,  see  Danube  Commission. 

Commission  for  Eeparation,  see  Reparation  Commission. 

Communist  system,  Bussian  failure  of,  148. 

Conference  of  Brussels,  219. 

Conference  of  London,  134,  141,  219. 

Conference  of  Paris,  30. 

Conference  of  San  Eemo  and  Armenia,  134;  180-182. 

Constantine,  King  of  Greece,  return  of,  177. 

Constantinople:  retained  by  Turks,  178;  Eussia's  desire  for,  27,  88; 
subject  to  international  control,  172;  the  Treaty  of  Sevres, 
172,  173. 

Crispi,  13. 

Crotia  and  London  Agreement,  71. 

Cyrenaica,  84. 

Czecho-Slovakia:  army,  137;  creation  of  State,  190;  war  debt,  260. 

Dalmatia,  and  London  Agreement,  72. 

Danube  Commission,  expense  of,  135. 

Danzig,  allotted  to  Poland,  57,  134,  145,  169. 

Dardanelles,  the  freedom  of,  Versailles  Treaty,  57. 

De  Foville  's  estimate  of  wealth  of  France,  220. 

Denikin,  157,  162. 

Denmark,  acquires  North  Scnleswig,  41. 

Disarmament,  conditions  of,  fulfilled  by  Germany,  116,  119,  131. 

Disease  and  aftermath  of  war,  136,  152,  161,  164,  167,  217,  242. 

Duchy  of  Muscovy,  8. 


INDEX  297 

Economic  barriers,  removal,  55. 

England's  greatness,  63. 

Entente:  and  Armenia,  180;  attitude  toward  war  and  treaty,  25; 
disagreement  among,  21 ;   and  Russia,  148,  158. 

Erzeroum,  Musselman  population  of,  180. 

Esthonia,  164. 

Eupen,  ceded  to  Belgium,  41. 

Europe:  area,  129;  effect  of  treaty  on  morals,  23;  population,  254- 
255;  financial  difficulties,  247  et  scq.;  increased  armament,  140; 
monarchies  before  the  war,  83 ;  need  for  solidarity,  16 ;  pre- 
war conditions,  14;  post-war  conditions,  20-23;  reconstruction 
and  peace  policy,  264  et  seq.;  results  of  war,  17;  ripe  for  war,  31. 

European  States,  war  debts  of,  260. 


Ferenzi,  statistics  about  Hungary,  167. 

Eezzan,  84. 

Fichte,  269. 

Financial  and  economic  clauses  of  peace  treaty,  44  et  seq. 

Finland,  164. 

Fiume,  Italy's  position,  70;   London  Agreement,  70. 

Foch,  Marshal:  214;  military  commission,  116;  peace  treaty,  116; 
unconstitutional  act  of,  118. 

Fourteen  Points,  see  Woodrow  Wilson. 

France:  acquired  Alsace-Lorraine,  41,  Saar  Basin,  44,  52,  122,  182; 
alliances,  252;  army  and  military  budget,  137;  and  Bolshevik 
Government,  158;  a  creditor  country,  12;  colonial  empire,  12; 
demands  at  Peace  Conference,  112  et  seq.-,  fear  of  future,  276; 
finances,  192,  194,  195,  220,  225,  260,  262;  indemnity,  76, 
121,  200  et  seq.)  invasion  of  right  bank  of  Rhine,  142;  naval 
budget,  143,  144;  object  in  war,  246;  post-war  army,  137;  post- 
war conditions,  241;  post-Avar  finances,  192-5;  post-war  private 
wealth,  220;  pre-war  status,  12,  birth  and  death  rate  and  popu- 
lation, 254,  255;  purport  at  Peace  Conference,  117,  125;  recog- 
nizes government  of  Wrangel,  157;  reparation,  126;  and  Ruhr, 
141,  185 ;  safety  and  military  guarantees,  276  et  seq. ;  shrewd- 
ness, 201,  202;  treaties  with  United  States  and  Great  Britain, 
277;  unjustness  to  Germany,  251;  violation  of  treaty,  141,  142; 
war  debt,  260;  wealth,  220. 

Franco-Prussian  "War,  the:  255;  indemnity  demanded  by  victors,  206; 
unjust  terms  of  Prussia,   64. 

Frankfort,  Treaty  of,  compared  with  Versailles  Treaty,  64. 

Frederick  the  Great,  4. 

Freedom  of  the  seas  and  the  peace  treaties,  54. 

French-American  treaty,  120. 

French-English    treaty,    129. 

French  territories,  liberation   of,  56. 

Frontiers,  changed  conditions  of,  53. 


298  INDEX 

George,  Lloyd:  armament,  98;  army  of  occupation,  96;  denounces 
economic  manifesto,  141;  European  unrest,  94;  fears  Germany 
■will  become  Bolshevik,  95;  Germany's  admission  to  League  of 
Nations,  99;  memorandum  for  Peace  Conference,  91  et  scq.; 
military  guarantees,  117;  need  for  just  terms,  99;  occupation  of 
Germany,  91;  Paris  Conference,  69,  114;  Poland,  186,  188; 
position  at  Paris  Conference,  70;  proposed  trial  of  Kaiser,  203; 
reparation,  76,  203;  role  of  League  of  Nations,  99;  Russia,  100. 

Georgia:  in  hands  of  Bolsheviks,  150;  Italy  prepares  expedition  to, 
149-152. 

German- Austria:  army  of,  137;  loses  access  to  sea,  135;  plight  of, 
166. 

Germany:  acceptance  of  Armistice,  20,  80;  Allies'  demands  for  in- 
demnities, 200  et  seq.;  annulment  of  her  treaties,  41;  army, 
137;  coal  production,  post-  and  pre-war,  46,  186;  destruction  of 
Heligoland,  43;  duties  on  imports,  45;  effect  of  Armistice,  50; 
effect  of  Peace  Treaty,  51-54;  effect  of  President  Wilson's 
messages,  33,  37,  49;  effect  of  United  States'  intervention,  28; 
financial  position,  192-195,  262;  growth  in  nationalism,  269; 
harmed  by  her  statesmen,  29;  helpless  condition,  132,  133; 
inability  to  pay,  262;  indemnity,  281  et  seq.;  lack  of  political 
sense,  29,  30;  losses:  in  Great  War,  222,  coal,  42,  iron,  53,  lo- 
comotives, 47,  sea,  136,  ships,  45;  necessity  for  signing  Treaty, 
115;  occupation  of,  118,  235;  outlet  in  Russia,  295;  poverty, 
281;  pre-war  birth  and  death  rate,  254;  post-war  plight,  136; 
post-war  finances,  192-195;  population,  255;  property  of  Ger- 
mans in  Alsace-Lorraine,  46;  reconstruction  of  Russia,  284; 
reduction  of  army,  116;  reparation:  ability  to  pay,  195,  215, 
et  seq.,  221-225;  capitalization,  226-229;  imports  and  exports, 
230-233;  indemnity,  262-263;  occupation,  cost  of,  235;  terms, 
215,  216;  what  she  has  paid,  286;  responsibility  for  war,  86; 
restriction  of  arms,  43;  Russia,  Germany's  fear  of,  10;  Sevres 
Treaty,  179;  unification  and  growth,  2-4;  victories,  29;  war 
record,  64;  weakness  in  politics,  4. 

Goethe,  4. 

Great  Britain:  aloofness,  69;  army,  139;  colonial  empire,  12;  enters 
war,  32;  financial  prosperity  a  detriment,  11;  finances,  193, 
259  et  seq.,  218,  282;  general  election,  203;  imperialism,  12; 
indemnity,  200  et  seq. ;  insularity,  69 ;  Italy,  63 ;  naval  budget, 
143,  144;  pledge  of  aid  to  France,  277;  population,  254;  post- 
war finances,  192,  193,  196;  reasons  for  entering  war,  244; 
Treaty  of  Versailles,  257;  war  credits,  282;  war  debts,  260; 
war  record,  63. 

Great  War:  dead,  1;  responsibility  for,  80  et  seq.;  result  decided  by, 
243. 

Greece:  Adrianople,  177;  army,  138;  Entente,  173  et  scq.;  finances, 
192;  gains  Bulgarian  territory,  171;  post-war  conditions,  174; 
Sevres  Treaty,  174;  Turkey,  176;  war  debt,  260. 


INDEX  299 

Hegel,  269. 

Helferich,  225. 

Herf,  Von,  and  Poland,  183. 

Hindenburg,   131. 

Holy  Alliance,  64. 

House,    Colonel:    deduction    of    German    Army,    117;    reparation   at 

Peace  Conference,  76,  77. 
Hughes,  William  Morris,  and  indemnity,  203-205. 
Hungary:  army,  134,  137;  finances,  167;  food,  165;  mortality,  167; 

population,  165;    pre-  and  post-war  area,   165;   resources,   166; 

Eumanian  occupation,  165;  Treaty  of  Trianon,  165. 
Hyman  and  reparation  at  Peace  Conference,  75. 

Indemnity,  Germany 's  ability  to  pay,  195,  215  et  seq.,  221. 

Indemnity  clause,  how  inserted,  75  et  seq. 

India,  British,  12. 

Inter- Allied  debts,  281  et  seq. 

Iron:     Germany's  lack  of  6;  loss  of,  53;  products,  253. 

Italian  Socialists  visit  Kussia,  155. 

Italo- Turkish  War,  84. 

Italy:  Adriatic  policy,  245;  Albanian  expedition,  151;  army,  139, 
246;  Balkans,  84;  declaration  of  neutrality,  244;  finances,  194, 
234,  256,  281;  freight  rates  affected  by  Kussia 's  dissolution, 
160;  Georgia,  152-153;  German  people,  249;  Government  of 
Moscow,  161;  Great  Britain,  63;  ineffectiveness  at  Peace  Con- 
ference, 70;  interest  in  Fiume,  70;  invasion  of  Belgium,  245; 
Libyan  adventure,  84;  London  Agreement,  70;  Montenegro, 
248;  national  policy,  250;  naval  budget,  143,  144:  Peace  Con- 
ference, 74;  population,  255;  post-war  finances,  192,  193,  194; 
reasons  for  war,  245;  recognition  of  Soviet,  156;  Socialists, 
155-157;  sufferings,  246;  territories  annexed,  248;  Triple 
Alliance,  13;  war  debts,  234,  260. 

Japan,  naval  budget,  143,  144. 
Jews  in  Poland,  189. 
Judenic,  General,  157. 

Jugo-Slavia:  acquires  Bulgarian  territory,  171;  army,  137;  claims, 
241;  finances,  192;  Magyars,  166. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  3,  189. 

Kautsky,  political  documents,  83. 

Keynes,  John  Maynard:  Economic  Consequences  of  the  Peace,  67; 
value  of,  211;  indemnity,  206,  210,  221;  Peace  Conference,  76, 
212;  solution  for  war  debts,  282;  tribute  to,  212,  213. 

Klagenfurth,  124. 

Klotz,  210. 

Koltchak,  Admiral,  157. 

Konigsberg,  home  of  Kant,  189. 

Kowno,  claimed  by  Poland,  188. 


300  INDEX 

Labor,  post-war  attitude,  289,  290. 

Lansing,  Robert,  07. 

Latvia,  104. 

Law,  Bonar:    indemnity,   70;   occupation  of  Germany,  119. 

League  of  Nations:  creation  of,  42,  58;  Danzig,  274;  Germany  de- 
barred, 270;  need  for  alterations,  275;  participation  of  van- 
quished, 270  et  seq.;  powers  of:  in  treaties,  273;  territorial, 
274j  in  war,  272;  value  as  moderator,  270;  Wilson's  error,  27L 

Libyan  adventure,  84  j  Vilna  occupied  by  Poles,  188. 

Lithuania,    104. 

London  Agreement  and  Italy,  70. 

London  Conference:    135;    discusses  economic  manifesto,  141. 

Loucheur,  220;  indemnity,  209. 

Ludendorff,  General,  important  declaration  of,  132. 

Luxemburg  iron  industry,  53. 


Magyars  in  Eumania:  105;  Treaty  of  Trianon,  105. 

Malmedy  given  to  Belgium,  41. 

Marienwerder,  a  plebiscite  for,  124. 

Marne,  battle  of,  244. 

Mesopotamia,  lost  by  Turkey,  173. 

Military  clauses  and  guarantees  of  Peace  Treaty,  43  et  seq.,  110  et 

seq.,  217. 
Moresnet  given  to  Belgium,  41. 
Montenegro:  and  Entente,  248;  restoration,  27. 
Monroe  Doctrine,  270. 

Moscow  Government  sends  gold  to  Sweden  and  French  action,  158. 
Mussulman  population  in  Turkey,  181. 


Napoleon  I:  28;  and  Poland,  147;  253. 

Napeoleon  III,  253. 

Naval  budgets,  143. 

Neuilly,  Treaty  of,  24;  171. 

New  Zealand,  Britain's  share,  12. 

Nicholas  II,  3;  and  Poland,  20;   153. 

Nineteenth  Century  wars,  10. 

Nitti,  Francesco:  Conferences  of  London  and  San  Remo,  134, 
141,  180,  218;  denounces  economic  manifesto,  141;  Germany's 
responsibility  for  war,  80;  ideals,  207;  inclusion  of  all  nations  in 
League  of  Nations,  270  et  seq.;  indemnity  200  et  seq.;  Italian 
expedition  to  Georgia,  152;  Italian  Socialists,  158;  proposed 
trial  of  Kaiser,  30;  receives  deputation  of  German  business 
men,  0;  Russia,  140;  signs  Treaty  of  Versailles,  60;  son  a 
prisoner  of  war,  214. 

Northcliffe  Press  and  indemnity,  203. 

North  Schleswig  given  to  Denmark,  41. 


INDEX  301 

Ogier  and  indemnity,  209. 

Gliganthropy,  12. 

Crlando,  70;  and  reparntion,  76. 

Orlando  Ministry,  resignation  of,  60. 

Ottoman  Empire,  limited  sovereignty  to  Turkish  parts,  57. 

Pact  of  London,  27. 

Palestine  and  Treaty  of  Sevres,  173. 

Paper  currency,  Germany's  pre-  and  post-war,  51. 

Paris:  unfortunate  location  for  Peace  Conference,  66;  Peace  Con- 
ference, 66  et  seq.,  109  et  seq.,  206;  Supreme  Council  at,  168; 
welcome  to  President  Wilson,  66. 

Pas  de  Calais,  287. 

Peace:  conditions  necessary  for,  279,  280;  summary  of  existing  con- 
ditions, 197. 

Peace  Conference:  duty  of,  67;  indemnity,  206;  Italian  representa- 
tives leave,  75. 

Peace  treaties:  application,  58;  a  continuation  of  war,  25  et  seq.; 
effect  on  Germany,  51  et  seq.;  a  negation  of  justice,  50,  58,  90, 
110,  264  et  seq.;  opposition  to  Fourteen  Points,  21,  69,  127; 
origin  and  aims,  65  et  seq.;  reparation  and  indemnity,  124  et 
seq.;  revision  a  necessity,  271. 

Peace  Treaty  of  June,  1919,  summary,  40. 

Peasants  of  Eussia,  161. 

Peter  the  Great,  8. 

Petrograd,  text  of  London  Agreement  published  in,  71. 

Plebiscite,  result  in  Upper  Silesia,  183. 

Plebiscite  system,  123. 

Poincare,  M.:  and  Clemenceau,  257;  League  of  Nations,  197;  Lloyd 
George's  reply  to,  121;  occupation  of  Germany,  120;  peace 
treaties,  65;  Spa  Treaty,  288. 

Poland:  anarchic  condition,  145;  army,  138;  creation  of  State,  42, 
145,  146;  Danzig,  42,  134,  145;  further  expansion,  182  et  seq.; 
gains  by  Treaty,  42,  182,  242;  greed,  138,  188;  Nicholas  II,  26; 
plebiscite,  183  et  seq.;  post-war  finances,  192,  195,  284;  struggle 
for  unity,  22;  Treaty  of  Versailles,  144;  treaty  with  France, 
138,  277;   working  for  ruin,  182. 

Portugal,  war  debt,  261. 

Progress,  war  a  condition  of,  15. 

Public  debts  of  warring  nations,  260. 

Reconstruction  of  Europe:  annulment  of  Inter- Allied  debts,  281 
et  seq.;  Germany's  indemnity,  281  et  seq.;  League  of  Nations, 
264  et  seq.;  necessity  of  forming  new  connections  with  Eussia, 
292  et  seq.;  revision  of  treaties,  272  et  seq.;  safety  of  France 
and  military  guarantees,  276  et  seq. 

Benner,  Chancellor  of  Vienna,  confers  with  Marquis  della  Torretta, 
267, 


302  INDEX 

Reparation  clause,  origin  of,  75  et  seq. 

Reparation,  problem  of,  215  et  seq. 

Reparations  Commission:  expense  of,  135;  formation  of,  125,  207; 
purpose  of,  44,  125;  suppression  necessary,  271  et  seq.;  275,  278. 

Rhine:  occupation  of,  118  et  seq.;  cost  to  Germany,  235. 

Riga,  hunger  and  sickness  in,  164. 

Ruhr,  occupation  of,  142,  185. 

Rumania:  army,  139;  evacuation  of,  57;  financial  position,  192,  260; 
gains  by  Treaty,  247;  Magyars  in,  253;  occupation  of  Hungary, 
165;   war  debt  of,  260. 

Russia:  army,  140;  birth  rate,  9,  255;  blockade,  292;  Bolshevism, 
152;  cause  of  war,  19;  collapse  and  effect,  27;  communism, 
149,  153;  effect  of  Japanese  defeat,  10;  Entente  aids  military 
undertakings,  156,  159;  financial  position,  261,  292;  future, 
253;  gains  in  Asia  Minor,  151;  Germany's  fear  of,  11;  League 
of  Nations,  270;  Lloyd  George,  100;  menace  to  Europe,  83; 
military  revolt,  157;  mobilization,  83;  outlet  for  Germany,  292; 
peasants,  162;  policy  of  Entente  toward,  147,  156  et  seq.,  292; 
policy  of  expansion,  88;  political  center,  80;  power  of  Czar,  9; 
present  day  plight,  154;  probable  number  of  men  under  arms, 
140;  resources,  153;  size  of  pre-war  empire,  8;  Treaty  of 
Sevres,  179;  Treaty  of  Versailles,  56;  war  debts,  260. 

Russo-Japanese  peace,  115. 

Russo-Japanese  War,  8. 

Saar:    American  point  of  view,  124;   annexation  of,  122;   given  to 

France,  44,  52,  122,  182;  plebiscite,  124. 
Saint-Germain-en-Laye,  Treaty  of,  4,  24,  41,  60,  69,  78,  136,  164. 
San  Remo  Conference,  134,  151,  180  et  seq.,  218. 
Schleswig,  a  plebiscite  for,  124. 
Secret  diplomacy  in  peace  treaties,  55. 
Serbia:   Allied  Press,  82;   evacuation  of,  57;  gains  by  Treaty,  242, 

247;  ignorance  of  London  Agreement,  73,  76;  responsibility  for 

war,  84,  242;  Russian  policy*,  82,  85;  war  debt,  26,  192,  260. 
Serbo-Croat  States:  financial  position,  192;  outlet  to  sea,  134. 
Sevres:  Treaty  of,  24,  60,  134,  172  et  seq.;  absence  of  Russia  and 

Germany,  179. 
Silesia,  see  Upper  Silesia. 

Slav  States,  cosmopolitan  population  of,  165,  190,  253. 
Smyrna,  the  Sanjak  of,  173  et  seq. 
Sonnino,  M.,  at  Paris  Conference,  75. 
South  Africa,  British,  11. 
Soviet,  recognition  refused,  156,  292. 
Spa  Conference,  218. 
Starling,  Professor,  233. 

States,  European,  pre-  and  post-war,  128  et  seq.,  259. 
Statist,  war  debts,  260. 
Submarine  menace,  70. 
Sweden,  Russian  gold  sent  to,  158, 


INDEX  303 

Tardieu,  AndrS:  guarantees  against  Germany,  133;  occupation  of 
Germany,  120;  Paris  Conference,  70,  109,  111,  113;  President 
Wilson,  characterized  by,  112;  reparation,  75;  reply  to  Lloyd 
George,  101;  report  to  Paris  Conference,  77 ;  The  Truth  about 
the  Treaty,  67,  70;  Versailles  Treaty,  257,  272. 

Territorial  and  Political  clauses  of  Treaty,  40. 

Thrace  assigned  to  Greece,  174. 

Torretta,  Marquis  della,  confers  with  Chancellor  Eenner,  267. 

Trade  conditions  and  Peace  Treaty,  51. 

Treaties,  peace — see  Neuilly,  Saint-Germain-en-Laye,  Sevres,  Trianon, 
Versailles. 

Treaties  with  France  against  Germany's  aggression,  118,  119,  277. 

Treaty  system,  effect  on  Europe,  18. 

Trianon,  Treaty  of,  24,  60,  134,  164,  168,  170. 

Triple  Alliance,  13,  241. 

1 '  Triplice,  > '  see  Triple  Alliance. 

Tripoli  and  Italy,  84. 

Tripolitania,  84. 

Turkey:  Grand  Visier's  note,  177;  Treaty  of  Sevres,  173  et  seq. 

Turquan,  estimate  of  France's  wealth,  220. 

United  States:  Armenia,  180;  Army  of  Occupation,  118;  danger  of 
collecting  war  debts,  283;  financial  effect  of  Germany's  fall, 
239;  France,  277;  importance  of  intervention,  28,  32,  34,  143, 
234;  indemnity,  206;  League  of  Nations,  37,  106,  256,  265,  271; 
London  Agreement,  73 ;  loss  of  men  in  war,  28 ;  naval  budget, 
143;  post-war  finances,  193,  196;  reparation,  125;  Saar,  124; 
Treaty  of  Versailles,  243,  276;  war  credits,  260;  see  America. 

Upper  Silesia:     186  et  seq.;  iron  in,  54. 

Venezelos,  M.:   173;  fall  of,  176;  tribute  to,  175. 

Versailles:  Treaty  of,  24,  30,  56,  60,  78,  144,  145,  210;  based  on, 
144;  conditions  in  Germany  as  a  result  of,  131;  Danzig  cor- 
ridor, 189;  injustice  of  indemnity,  210,  256;  Lloyd  George,  186; 
ratification,  60;  summarv,  40  et  seq.;  United  States'  feeling, 
243,  276;  violation  of,  183,  184,  185. 

Vienna:  conditions  in,  135;  wireless  station,  136. 

Vissitch,  M.,  and  reparation,  76. 

Wachter,  Kinderlen,  and  Eussia,  87. 

War:  aftermath,  135,  152,  161,  164,  167,  220,  243;  debts  of  Allies, 
191  et  seq.;  260  et  seq.;  281  et  seq.;  definition  of,  28;  devas- 
tation of  culture,  17;  divided  responsibility  for,  81;  graft  of 
commissions,  133;  moral  effect,  266;  necessity  for,  15;  propa- 
ganda, 89. 

Warfare,  modern,  10. 

Wars  of  last  three  centuries,  269. 


304  INDEX 

Willinm  II:  author's  aversion  to,  3;  miles  gloriosus,  31;  oratory 
harmful  to  Germany,  5;  proposed  trial,  30  et  seq.,  203  et  seq., 
responsibility  for  war,  31,  87. 

Wilson,  Woodrow:  Armenia,  180;  demonstration  against,  in  Italy, 
75;  effect  of  messages  on  Germany,  32;  Fiume,  241;  Fourteen 
Points  of,  21,  34  et  seq.,  145;  reparation,  77;  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles, 54  et  seq.;  ignorance  of  European  affairs,  68  et  seq.; 
League  of  Nations,  33,  39,  108;  military  guarantees,  119; 
reparation,  77;  Russia,  147;  speech  to  Senate,  90;  territorial 
adjustments,  37  et  seq.;  welcome  at  Paris,  60. 

Wolff  and  Germany,  269. 

Wrangel,  General,  55,  148,  157. 


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